14 DAY TRIAL // Google Chrome 17 has landed in the stable channel. As always, Chromebook owners have to wait some more though, they're still stuck with Chrome 16 for the time being. It shouldn't be long now, but Chrome 17 certainly isn't ready for now.
Google though decided to at least give Chromebook owners a heads-up on some of the things they should be expecting when Chrome 17 is available for them as well.
"In the near future, we will also begin rolling out updates to Chrome OS to further simplify the Chromebook experience," Google's Noé Lutz announced.
"With a new image editor, Chromebook users will be able to quickly view, edit and share photos on the web. Users will also see an improved Verizon 3G activation portal, which includes the ability to set up a recurring purchase of mobile data," he explained.
Those using the beta channel or even the dev channel already know what they expect. Chrome 17 has been available for a while in those channels and all of the new features have already been introduced.
The big new feature in Chrome 17, as far as Chromebook owners are concerned, is the brand new photo editor, finally enabling them to touch up photos, cut them or resize them via the built-in tool rather than relying on some web application that may or may not work, needs web access and probably needs too many steps to upload a photo, edit it and then export it.
The other big fresh feature is a new Verizon portal, for activation and top-up. The portal sports some of the most requested features, such as recurrent billing for pre-paid plans, the ability to buy more traffic before the allotted one dries up and the removal of the requirement of a credit card for those staying within the free 100 MB of traffic that comes with any Chromebook.
Also new in Chrome 17 for Chromebooks are an updated file manager and support for OpenVPN. All of this, of course, on top of the Chrome 17 features available to all, page preloading and download scanning, which isn't of much use to Chromebook owners.