Google Chrome 7.0 Stable for Linux Released

Google has announced earlier today, October 20th, a new stable version of the popular Google Chrome web browser for Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. Google Chrome 7.0.517.41 features hundred of fixes from the last stable release, 6.0.472.63.

Google Chrome 7.0.517.41 is also the first stable version of the 7.x series. The Chrome community was quite busy, as we can see from the few hundred bugs that have been fixed, according to their own page on code.google.com. Even if this is mostly a bugfix release, a few important features have been implemented, most notably the ability to install web apps, a "little" thing Google has failed to mention in their announcement. Moreover, the highly anticipated Chrome Web Store is now closer to reality. Other features that have been brought in the new version are an updated HTML5 parser, and the File API, which in theory should offer support for editing local files directly in the browser, with the aid of HTML 5 (e.g. images, txt). Firefox has been left in the dust, as Mozilla were the first to implement the new HTML5 parser with the 4.0 Beta release, but the Google Chrome developers have actually managed to get it in this new stable version.

Google Chrome 7 on Ubuntu 10.10

Directory upload is another goody from Google, this being rather self explanatory. This means that you can upload entire directories, instead of single files. Google has also mentioned that a few major security problems have been corrected, and they wanted to send special thanks to Aki Helin and “kuzzcc," two programmers who have made crucial contributions which helped the company to deliver the first stable version of the 7.x series just in time. Google Chrome will see another important release in about six weeks, so until then, if you’re not satisfied with Google Chrome 7.0.517.41, you can always try the 8.x development version. Unfortunately, Google Chrome 7.0.517.41 is not a major improvement over the 6.x series, as there are just a couple of new features, and some of the most expected ones never made it.

Google Chrome 7.0.517.41 is a available for download from Softpedia, for the Ubuntu/Debian and Fedora/Red Hat or OpenSuSE distributions.