14 DAY TRIAL // Google is making headway with the development of the next iteration of its open source browser, having released a new development Build of Chrome.
Google Chrome 7.0.544.0 is now available for download through the Dev channel to early adopters running Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
According to Jason Kersey, from the Google Chrome team, Build 7.0.544.0 of Chrome brings to the table a variety of stability fixes designed to make the Dev release of the browser more reliable.
In addition, the update makes “it possible to completely hide sections in the NTP (hit close button that appears on hover of section header),” Kersey explained.
The Mountain View-based search giant is moving extremely fast with new releases of Chrome, as promised in the past.
In the second half of September 2010, just after Microsoft released its own Beta for Internet Explorer 9, Google was still providing Beta versions of Chrome 6.0.
But by the end of the past month version 7.0 of the search giant’s open source browser had already graduated to the Beta channel, a move which signals the proximity of the final release.
Also at the end of September 2010, Google offers a comprehensive update to the Dev channel, delivering a number of enhancements for testers to play with.
Chrome 7.0.536.2 Dev for Windows offered boosted hardware acceleration capabilities, as well as WebGL support on the browser’s default configuration, and a number of additional fixes.
With Chrome 7.0 available to testers, all the pre-release versions of the top three browsers worldwide support hardware acceleration.
Testers can take not only Chrome 7.0 Dev out for a spin, but also Firefox 4.0 Beta 6 and Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Beta.
Out of the three releases above, IE9 Beta offers the best experience in terms of hardware acceleration, with rival browsers trailing it.
Google Chrome for Windows is available for download here.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Build 9.0.7930.16406 is available for download here.
Firefox 4.0 Beta 6 for Windows is available for download here.