14 DAY TRIAL // Tech savvy folks have been testing Google Chrome 6, available in the dev channel, for the past couple of months, but those not wanting to fiddle with potentially unstable software have been stuck with Google Chrome 5 either in beta or in stable form. But if Google sticks to its regular pace, a beta release of Chrome 6 is just around the corner and a stable one is not that far ahead. Here are some of the new features and changes you can expect from Google Chrome 6, some of which have already been implemented and some that are still in the works.
Changes to the UI
On the UI front, Chrome’s already minimal interface gets some tweaks and trimming, clearing up even more space. The Go button, which normally sits at the end of the Omnibox has been removed, presumably since it didn’t get much use. The Stop and Reload buttons have been merged and are in place of the simple Reload one. The bookmark ‘star’ button has been moved to the other side of the Omnibox.
Unified menu
An even bigger change to the interface is the new unified menu. Google regularly sports two menu buttons on the right side of the toolbox, Page and Wrench. The Page menu, as the name implies, houses page editing features, cut, copy, paste, and a few tools aimed mostly at developers.
Very few people actually used most of the entries there on a regular basis so Google developers have integrated the most popular ones in the Wrench menu and saved a few pixels by removing the Page one. This change has been implemented on the Windows builds for now, but should be in place on all platforms by the time a beta or stable release of Google Chrome 6 is made available.
Support for WebM
Another touted feature in Chrome 6 is support for the WebM video format, specifically for the VP8 codec. WebM is a new open-source project initiated by Google which aims to provide a viable and open alternative to H.264. Most browser makers support the project and Opera became the first to support it in a stable release in Opera 10.60.
Built-in PDF viewer
A smaller feature that could have a great impact is the new built-in PDF viewer. Unlike the integrated Adobe Flash Player, which has made its way all the way down to the stable release, the PDF viewer is not based on Adobe technology.
The viewer is able to render a PDF file as a HTML file, like it has been possible in Gmail or even from the Google search results. It won’t replace your traditional PFD reader and it’s not even on par with the Docs PDF viewer, which can be accessed in Chrome via an extension, but it’s a good enough tool for when you need to quickly preview a file.
Extensions sync
A feature that got a lot of work in Chrome 5 is getting some polish in Chrome 6. The browser already supports syncing bookmarks, preferences and even themes. In the latest builds, this is expanded to extension and auto-fill sync.
There are other small tweaks and features not listed here that will be present. And Google may yet add some features it hasn’t talked about yet, but the list should give you a good idea of what Google Chrome 6 has in store.
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.
