14 DAY TRIAL // The new Google Chrome 16 beta has been made available. The big notable feature in the latest release is the support for multiple Chrome profiles, on the same computer. You can now have more Chrome users running the same browser, just like you can have multiple users on a Windows machine.
Each profile will be associated to a different Google account, though you can opt not to sign in if you don't want to sync your settings, bookmarks and other data between computers.
And each profile will be completely separate, all the settings, bookmarks, apps, open tabs and so on, will be saved independently.
"What if you share a computer with family or friends? You may not want your bookmarks and settings mixing with your brother’s or your roommate’s bookmarks and settings, and you wouldn’t want their Chrome stuff syncing to your other devices," Miranda Callahan, Software Engineer at Google, wrote.
"In today’s Beta release, we’ve added a new feature that lets people who use a shared computer each have their own personalized Chrome, and lets them each sign in to Chrome to sync their stuff," she said.
The fun part is that you can run two Chrome windows, each belonging to its own user, at the same time.
This makes it quite an useful option if you want to maintain two different Chrome profiles for yourself, for example, one for work and one for watching YouTube, or general browsing.
To create a new user for the first time, go to the Options or Preferences page, go to Personal Stuff and you'll notice the multiple-user section. Just click "Add new user" to create a new one.
You'll then notice a new badge with your avatar, enabling you to switch between the different users. The badge is also stuck to any Chrome window to easily realize which one is yours.
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.