Google Gives Chrome A Kick In The Flash

Google today rolled out a new beta version of its Chrome browser for the Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. In a blog post, Google waxes poetic about all sorts of crazy speed tests (V8, SunSpider, etc.). All you need to know is: It's fast, it works, upgrade now.According to Google's benchmarking tools, the latest beta of Chrome is sort of like comparing a landspeeder to the Millenium Falcon. The former will get you from point A to B in relatively short order, but the latter will blast you from one web site to the next at faster than the the competition. Google says that performance has been boosted by 213% and 305% on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks, respectively.

I don't have any fancy equipment at my home office to test those benchmarks, or any other speed measuring capabilities for that matter. I can say, however, that it is noticeably faster. I was stunned by the speed improvements during the first few moments I spent with the new beta. I tested some web sites that I find to be a pain in the arse to load, and found them to be less painful.

Speed is not the only improvement, though. The newest version of Chrome has all sorts of tweaks under the hood. Users can synch both bookmarks, and preferences across machines. Preferences would include items such as the home page, content settings, themes, and so on. I always find completely synced browsers very appealing, as I always know what to expect when I launch the browser no matter which machine I happen to be using.

Google has also baked in some more fun stuff, including new HTML5 features. Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop capabilities are all in the new HTML5 sauce that's cooking in Chrome.

Unlike Apple, Google is not snubbing Flash (at least, not yet). Chrome now has an integrated Flash Player plug-in available, which Google says will help improve the overall web browsing experience. The plug-in is automatically installed, and users don't have to take any other steps to enable it. The Flash player itself can also be updated automatically on its own, independent from updates to Chrome.

Good stuff! If you're already running Chrome, simply use the preferences tool to update to the latest browser.

If you're a real geek and want to see how Google accomplished some of this web browsing voodoo, you can check it out here: