Feb 3, 2011 18:39 GMT  ·  By

Google Chrome 9 has now been pushed to the stable channel, marking the official release of the latest version of the popular browser. After a slight delay during the winter holidays, the team is back on schedule, releasing a stable release every six weeks. With such a short release schedule, new versions are nothing major, but Chrome 9 comes with plenty of things to enjoy.

WebGL the upcoming web 3D graphics standard is now built in and enabled by default.

Also new is Chrome Instant, the browser implementation of the Google Chrome concept. Finally, the Web Store is now fully supported in the stable channel.

"Today, we’re excited to bring several new features from Chrome’s beta channel to the stable build, including WebGL, Chrome Instant, and the Chrome Web Store," Erik Kay and Aaron Boodman, Software Engineers at Google, announced.

WebGL went from idea to de facto standard in less than two years. The technology is supported by many major browser makers, Apple, Mozilla and, of course, Google.

It enables developers to leverage the GPU capabilities of most modern computers for immersive games or lavish website graphics inside the browser.

Chrome Instant implements the concept behind Google Instant in the browser. It's not enabled by default, but if activated it allows users to simply start typing in the Omnibox while the page they are looking for, the search results start loading in the background.

"The Chrome Web Store is now open to all Chrome users in the United States. As part of this, we’ve now added a link to the Chrome Web Store on the New Tab page, along with two sample apps. (If you don’t use these sample apps, they will automatically disappear after some time)," Google explained.
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.