14 DAY TRIAL // As expected, Google is not wasting any time with Chrome. The Google Chrome 6 Beta has just been made available and the team has already moved to Chrome 7. The first Chrome 7 builds have landed in the Chromium repositories and a Canary build as well as a dev channel release should be coming soon, maybe as early as this week.
Those familiar with Chrome development know that releases are incremental and just because it has the Chrome 7 sticker attached to it doesn’t mean that it’s a much different than Chrome 6, at least not yet.
Chromium 7.0.497 is the first build to get a major version number bump. Changes from the latest Google Chrome 6.0.490.1 dev are minimal and evolutionary.
The Chromium builds continue the UI revamp with some small tweaks fixes. It’s too early to tell what Google has in mind for Chrome 7.
One major feature that is very likely coming is support for web apps and the Chrome Web Store, slated for launch later this year. Chrome 6 already has support for web apps, but it’s not enabled by default.
Another feature that should be landing soon, enabled by default, is the “click-to-play” functionality for blocked plugins. Other features linked to Chrome OS, which is also slated for a fall launch, should be making their way into Chrome 7 as well.
The team has just released the Chrome 6 beta, which has already seen a small update. The stable builds are still stuck at Chrome 5, but the first Chrome 6 stable release should be coming very soon, at the pace the developers are moving.
Google has said it plans to ramp up the delivery schedule, aiming to launch a major stable release once every six weeks rather than three months as is the norm now. As such, Google Chrome 7 stable should be landing by the end of September.
Chromium 7.0.497.0 is available for download here.