14 DAY TRIAL // Google has made available for download the second update of 2010 for its open source browser. On January 6, the Mountain View-based search giant has kicked up a notch the Dev channel version of Google Chrome. Early adopters can now grab Google Chrome Build 4.0.288.1 through the developer channel, a release which is available for all supported platforms. Technically, Google Chrome Beta Build 4.0.249.49 was the first release of the open source browser this year. However, the Beta channel update made available on January 4th, 2010, was released exclusively for Mac OS X.
“The Dev channel has been updated to 4.0.288.1 for Linux, Mac, and Windows,” revealed Anthony Laforge, Google Chrome program manager. “Fixed an issue which caused HTML5 audio/video content to not load. Fixed a bug where content scripts would get run twice in some cases.”
The start of 2010 brought with it good news for Google Chrome. Internet metrics company Net Applications announced that as of January 1st, 2010, Chrome was the third most popular browser worldwide, behind Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. “Google's Chrome browser is now the third most popular browser in usage share. Chrome recently passed Safari and now has 4.6% usage share,” a Net Applications representative revealed.
In this regard, the Mountain View company has managed quite a performance with Chrome, which only made its debut at the end of 2008. According to statistics provided by Net Applications, Internet Explorer’s downward trajectory on the browser market continues at a steady rate. IE is losing approximately 1% of the browser market each month, with Internet Explorer 8 failing to stop the exodus of users. Meanwhile Mozilla Firefox is also growing its audience in the detriment of IE, and is now up to a market share of 24.61%.
The latest releases of Google Chrome are available for download here.