14 DAY TRIAL // Only a couple of days after the latest Chrome updates went live, Google started pushing new Builds to early adopters testing the open source browser. Google Chrome 11.0.696.3 is now available for download through the Dev Channel, and according to the Mountain View-based search giant, the release if offered to all testers running Windows, Mac OS X or Linux.
On March 8th, 2011, the Dev Channel was updated to version 11.0.696.0 but just for Windows and Mac OS X, with Build 11.0.696.1 following shortly for those testers running Linux.
Chrome 11.0.696.3 appears to be focused on resolving a number of issues that survived past the previous Dev Channel release.
Karen Grunberg, from the Google Chrome team, enumerated no less than four problems that the Mountain View search giant has dealt with:
“•Can not select omnibox auto suggested entries by clicking at it;
•Linux: "Behavior " string is not externalized on the Exceptions page;
•Chromium not loading some plugins;
•POST omits body after NTLM authentication.”
Save for Chromium, the underlying open source project behind Chrome, the Dev Channel offers the most advanced versions of the open source browser.
Of course, users need to understand that all Chrome Dev Builds are pre-release versions designed for deployment in testing environments, and not into production.
The latest series of issues that were fixed are a clear indication that Chrome 11 is not yet ready for all end users to run on a daily basis, and that, at least for the time being, customers not comfortable with pre-release software should run Chrome 10 Stable.
The latest Chrome Stable Build, version 10.0.648.127, was released earlier this week, offering a number of enhancements and new features, among which a new V8 version Crankshaft, improving JavaScript performance, an overhaul to the settings page, Flash sandboxing, GPU acceleration for video, etc.
Google Chrome for Windows is available for download here.
Google Chrome for Linux is available for download here.
Google Chrome for Mac is available for download here.