Google Announces Many Improvements to Chrome Browser Beta

Today's new beta of Chrome brings the most significant speed and performance increases to date., with 30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over the previous beta channel release.

Google notes that Chrome's performance has improved by as much as 213% and 305% on these two benchmarks since our very first beta.

Today's beta release also includes a handful of new features. Not too long ago, we introduced bookmark sync into the browser, which allows you to keep your bookmarks synchronized on multiple computers using your Google Account. Beta users can now synchronize not only bookmarks, but also browser preferences including themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, and language. By popular demand especially from avid Chrome extensions users, you can now install and use Chrome extensions while in incognito mode.


The release also contains new HTML5 features including: Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop capabilities. Additionally, it brings initial integration of the Adobe Flash Player plug-in with Chrome, "so that you can browse a rich, dynamic web with added security and stability." Chrome will automatically install security and feature updates for the Flash Player.

You can get the latest beta here: Windows, Mac, Linux