14 DAY TRIAL // A new development build of Google’s open source browser is now available for download. Google Chrome 5.0.342 was released through the Beta channel on April 7th, and is designed to deal with an issue already resolved in the Stable flavor of Chrome. According to Mark Larson, from the Google Chrome Team, Build 5.0.342 Beta is available not only for Windows, but also for Mac OS X and Linux.
Early adopters already running Chrome Beta and that will update to Build 5.0.342 will be able to resolve problems related to browser extensions that are not installing properly. This is in fact the focus of Chrome 5.0.342 Beta, namely to fix the extensions installer, an issue initially reported in mid-March 2010.
Google first tackled the issue on March 23rd, with an update released through the Stable channel. Obviously, the Stable version of its open source browser is the top priority for the Mountain View-based search giant, as it is the version served to all users. Almost two weeks later, the extensions installer problem was also fixed on Chrome 5.0, for the Beta release of the browser.
Up to this point in time, Google has said nothing to indicate that the most advanced version of Chrome, served through the Dev channel, would also be affected by this issue. The latest update to the Dev channel was released on April 1st, and took the browser to version 5.0.366.2 for Windows and Linux, and 5.0.366.0 for Mac. In the changelog accompanying the Dev channel flavor of Chrome 5.0, Google did not mention the delivery of a fix for the extensions installer.
The first Chrome 5 Beta for Windows was offered on March 26th, 2010, however Larson made it clear that most of the features in version 5.0 had in fact already been delivered in Chrome 4.1 through the Stable channel.
The latest versions of Google Chrome 5.0 are available for download here.