May 10, 2011 12:40 GMT  ·  By
The upcoming Google Chrome 13 will feature experimental multiple profile support
   The upcoming Google Chrome 13 will feature experimental multiple profile support

With the launch of Google Chrome 11 a couple of weeks ago, it was only a matter of time before Google Chrome 12 entered the beta phase. Google usually runs the same version in both the stable and the beta channels for a while, but beta users should now start to be updated to the latest Google Chrome 12 Beta which has just been released.

Of course, now that Chrome 12 has moved to the beta channel, Google Chrome 13 should be landing any time now, likely later today.

The new Google Chrome 12 Beta comes with a number of new features and capabilities. Security and privacy are high on the list of priorities for this release as Chrome now warns users trying to download files that may be infected with malicious code and also integrates controls for Flash local storage objects with the rest of the content control options.

Hardware acceleration is getting a boost in Google Chrome 12, the browser can now use the GPU to accelerate 3D CSS on top of all of the elements already supported.

One expected change in Google Chrome 12 is that it no longer supports the proprietary Google Gears technology. Google has mostly moved to HTML5 to replace all of what Gears enabled and, though the transition is not complete, it is time to bury the technology which had already been deprecated last year.

Now that Google Chrome 12 is in beta, Google Chrome 13 will be moving to the dev channel. There have been quite a few Chromium 13 and several Google Chrome 13 Canary builds already.

The big new feature in the very latest Chrome is support for multiple profiles which is still experimental. The feature enables users to log in with multiple credentials and run different profiles, meaning preferences, bookmarks and so on, in different browser windows.

The feature is not enabled by default and it doesn't work on all platforms yet so it's unclear if the team has enough time to polish and graduate it before Chrome 13 is ready to ship.

Keeping with Google Chrome's release schedule, Chrome 12 should be hitting the stable channel about four weeks from now. Chrome 13 is still three months away from becoming widely available to the majority of Chrome users.