Valve Launches Steam Beta Client with In-Game Browser

Valve is definitely a company that's been on a high ascending trend lately, knowing that its latest title, Left 4 Dead, has been very successful, managing quite a lot of sales. The game ushered in a new level of multiplayer interaction and gave a new meaning to the term co-op, while the innovative Versus mode, in which players could choose to be either the survivors or the infected zombies, took the gameplay to another level.

But Valve hasn't been tinkering only with Left 4 Dead, as it has quite a lot of other projects underway. Although the work on improvements to Team Fortress 2 and the development of Half Life 2 Episode Three are very important, the company has also managed to release a new client for its online content distribution service, Steam.

This new client, which is still in beta form, will be host to quite a lot of new changes, including a variety of fixes to the game management system and some new tweaks to the Steamworks system. But, most importantly, the new in-game browser promises to give a new meaning to the word multitasking, as it will offer a complete browsing experience, including the support for flash-based websites.

Those of you who want to experience this new beta client, can do so by accessing File -> Settings and, on the Account tab, there will be a special section entitled Beta participation, which will allow you to download the new client. After the download and the install, your Steam client will restart and then you will be able to enjoy the new features that it will bring.

All in all, a very interesting piece of news, sure to make quite a lot of people interested in this new version of the popular Steam service, which holds over 16 million active accounts worldwide and over 500 games in its portfolio. Let's not forget that the client is still in beta, but we might expect a final version in the future.