14 DAY TRIAL // It took Microsoft almost two decades of Internet Explorer releases to get to version 9. Google did it in approximately a couple of years, and by the looks of it users will be running Google Chrome 15 in no time, perhaps even as year as by the end of 2011, with major releases now roughly six weeks apart. After it moved the Chromium project up to version 9.0, Google is now offering early adopters and developers the first real taste of Chrome 9.0 as well.
Google Chrome 9.0.570.0 is now available for download via the Dev Channel for testers running Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. In addition, Chrome Frame has also been upgraded to version 9.0.570.0.
There are a number of bug fixes for all platforms, but no new features underpinned by the Mountain-View-based search giant.
In terms of security, Chrome 9.0.570.0 Dev “requires a user gesture when opening file choose dialog and make sure file choose dialog from invisible windows can not be displayed,” revealed Karen Grunberg, from the Google Chrome team.
In addition, with Chrome 9.0 graduating to the Dev Channel from the Chromium project, there are a number of issues which have been introduced.
Grunberg enumerated some of them: “regression: Windows media player for Firefox doesn't load; regression:accelerated compositing slows down the whole machine; google.com/wave : "Page Unresponsive" dailog box appears; myspace.com : Cannot enter a character in Comments field.”
At the end of October 2010 Google had pushed the Dev Channel up to 8.0.552.23 for all platform. This is indicative of the fact that the first beta development milestone of Chrome 8.0 is literally just around the corner.
Users will undoubtedly see the final version of Chrome 8.0 released by the end of this year.
At the same time, testers are also bound to get to play with the Beta for Chrome 9.0 ahead of 2011.
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.