Google Earth 5.1 Sheds the Beta Label

Google Maps is great for mapping out a trip, getting directions, or finding a Chinese restaurant near you, but Google Earth manages to make maps actually fun. The latest version of Google's 3D mapping software just shed its beta tag after getting rid of most of the lingering bugs. With Google Earth 5.1 the focus is on speed, a recurring theme at the company.

“Two months ago, we released the beta version of Google Earth 5.1. The 5.1 release focused on one of our most important features: performance. The power of Google Earth is the seamless, immersive 3D fly-throughs that give you a sense of being "there," so we made a lot of adjustments under the hood to make flying around the globe faster and smoother. Today, after a few more tweaks and bug fixes, we're proud to say that we're ready to remove the beta tag,” Peter Birch, Google Earth product manager, wrote.

The latest version is just an incremental update so most users won't notice any change. The work has been done under the hood ironing out the kinks and making sure that the plug-in is stable enough. Of course, at Google the beta tag doesn't really mean anything, Gmail was labeled as beta for five years, but it does meant that Google Earth users get a more polished experience.

The focus in Google Earth 5.1 as a whole was on the underlying technology and less on big features. The team has been working on getting everything to run faster and smoother. Memory optimization was one of the things which should make a difference in 5.1, but graphics performance was also improved. Finally, not only is the software faster, it starts up 25 percent faster too. Along with the updates and improvements in the program itself, Google also made it easier to get the same experience on your browser. Therefore, Google Earth now comes bundled with the browser plug-in for both PC and Mac users.


Google Earth 5.1 final for Windows is available for download here.
Google Earth 5.1 final for Mac is available for download here.