14 DAY TRIAL // Google Chrome 30 has landed in the stable channel and all users should be updated over the next few days. There's not a lot to brag about in the new Chrome; most of the focus has been on under-the-hood improvements, and even those don't affect all users directly.
The one big user-facing new feature is search by image from the context menu. Right-clicking on any image will give you the option to look for copies of that image via Google Search.
This is very useful if you're trying to find bigger versions of an image or to track down its original source. Search by image is not perfect and you won't always find what you are looking for, but it's still a very useful tool on many occasions.
Other than search by image, regular users won't notice anything new in the latest Chrome update. There is a long list of security fixes in the latest built, a total of 50. Chrome Apps, the former packaged apps, also get a few more capabilities.
App developers can now tap into more APIs such as webview.request, as well as access a local media gallery and manage downloads.
Chrome 30 also comes with better WebRTC support; you can now swap your mic or webcam during a chat or call and continue where you left off.
Developers will also be glad to know that the latest Chrome supports CSS source maps, i.e. preprocessors, such as Sass, Less, or Stylus. This makes it possible to edit the SCSS source files, for example, directly from the Chrome dev tools, useful for making small adjustments such as a new color, a different size and so on.
All in all though, Chrome users have to look to the Android version for the big new features. For one, there are several new gestures to help with navigation, a horizontal swipe across the top toolbar switches between tabs and a vertical swipe brings up the tab switcher.
WebGL support was also supposed to be enabled by default in this release. It was enabled in the beta, but it looks like it's not part of the stable release as Google wanted more time to test it.