14 DAY TRIAL // Google is upping the ante on the Dev and Beta channels of Chrome with two new releases of their powerful Webkit-based, open source application designed for browsing the web.
Chrome has finally been promoted to version 15 on the developer channel, a move that avid users of the Google-developed web browser had expected since last week’s release of version 13 Stable.
In the same manner, Chrome Beta has now been promoted to version 14.
On the Dev front, Chrome 15.0.849.1 includes fixes for many known stability issues.
For Mac users in particular, Dharani Govindan of the Google Chrome team mentions that the bookmark folder menus have been replaced with native menus and that the overlay scrollbar in PDF on OS X Lion is gone.
Also noteworthy, the V8 engine is updated to version 3.5.2.0.
For Beta users, Chrome 14.0.835.35 contains a number of new features and functions, according to Jason Kersey, also a member of the development team maintaining Chrome.
The changes include: initial release of Native Client; Web Audio API; Sync Encryption for all data; Experimental Web Request extension API; and Experimental Content Settings extension API.
For Mac, Print Preview is fully enabled. Additional Mac OS X Lion feature support has also been implemented.
Although Google does not specify which Lion features Chrome supports exactly, these include Full Screen (a function already supported by the Stable builds of Chrome) Resume (the ability to restart to the state in which the computer was shut down), and others.
Mac users looking to employ Chrome for important tasks should always rely on the Stable version of the web browser.
Chrome 13 Stable features, among other tweaks and enhancements, an updated version of the Adobe Flash Player.
The new release is focused on security, meaning that if you haven’t updated yet, it’s high time that you did.