14 DAY TRIAL // A new version of Google’s open source browser is now available for download, enabling users to take advantage of new features initially planned for availability with the next major version of Chrome. The Mountain View search giant is now cooking a minor update to Google Chrome 4.0, the stable version of which was finalized and released to the public in the first half of February 2010. However, it now appears that Chrome 4.1 (only for Windows) will be delivered ahead of Chrome 5, and more importantly, that Google has decided to make some version 5 features available early. Users need to understand that Google Chrome 4.1 Build 4.1.249.1021 Beta is pre-release software, and, as such, does not deliver the quality standard of a finalized version in terms of stability and reliability.
“The Windows Beta channel for Google Chrome has been updated to 4.1.249.1021. This update has some new features that we wanted you to be able to try before Chrome 5 is ready, so we created Chrome 4.1. The new features are: automatic translation of web pages and ore content settings to let you control whether web sites can store cookies, load images, use plug-ins, run JavaScript or show pop-ups. You can find these new settings in under Options > Under the hood > Privacy,” Orit Mazor, Google Chrome program manager, revealed.
Machine translation is by far one of the most innovative technologies introduced to the web, enabling users to access information on websites that otherwise would have been incomprehensible because of the linguistic barrier. With Chrome 4.1 Build 4.1.249.1021 Beta, Google has integrated its machine translation technology directly into the browser. There’s no need for any browser extensions or plug-ins for Chrome 4.1 Beta, as the polyglot browser now offers machine translation capabilities by default.
“How does it work? When the language of the webpage you're viewing is different from your preferred language setting, Chrome will display a prompt asking if you'd like the page to be translated for you using Google Translate,” Wieland Holfelder, engineering director, Google Munich, stated. “We hope that the development of online translation tools like this one will help make all the world's information universally accessible in an easy, frictionless way – imagine reading a diversity of foreign language news sources in your mother tongue, or easily conducting online commerce across borders and languages.”
In addition, Google Chrome 4.1 Build 4.1.249.1021 Beta has evolved in terms of privacy capabilities. Holfelder underlines that the latest release of Chrome Beta is designed to give even more control to end users, as well as additional options to protect their online privacy. Google has been slapped with a consistent amount of criticism over its privacy practices, but the new Chrome 4.1 Build 4.1.249.1021 Beta only enables end users to better manage their information while surfing the web via the Mountain View’s company open source browser.
“In addition to Chrome's existing incognito mode – a handy way to browse the web without leaving traces of website visits on your computer or downloads in your browser history – you can now manage your privacy settings in the new "Privacy" section of Chrome's Options dialog. From these settings, you can control how browser cookies, images, JavaScript, plug-ins, and pop-ups are handled on a site-by-site basis. For example, you can set up cookie rules to allow cookies specifically only for sites that you trust, and block cookies from untrusted sites,” Holfelder added.
Google Chrome 4.1 Beta for Windows is available for download here.
The latest release of Google Chrome 5.0 is available for download here.
Google Chrome 4.0 Stable is available for download here.