14 DAY TRIAL // Google has announced the release of a new beta version of Chrome, its lightweight web browser based on the WebKit layout engine and application framework. Currently at version 5.0.396.0 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, the browser reverts some changes from earlier builds (toolbar, omnibox and other UI elements), fixes bugs and, specifically for the Mac install base, further polishes the main frame UI, including the bookmark bar.
“The Dev channel has been updated to 5.0.396.0 for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms,” the latest update over at Google’s blog focusing on Chrome Releases reads. No author is listed this time around, but that’s of little importance for fans of the browser.
Still in beta, Chrome’s toolbar, omnibox and other UI changes reverted for Chrome 5 have been restored in this build, the developers reveal, enumerating the changes affecting all supported platforms. They’ve also managed to address “a bug related to scheme stripping that could cause URLs of the form ‘http://ftp.foo.com’ to be misnavigated, by not stripping the scheme in this case.” Other bugs, related to stripping “http://” and its interaction with the clipboard, have also been addressed, while, “Chrome should now prepend schemes onto the pasted text in a variety of situations,” the developers further note.
As pinpointed above, a single Mac-specific change is documented in the release notes – “continual polish to main frame UI, including the bookmark bar.” On the Linux side, “Bookmark bar icons should no longer be cropped under some GTK themes,” Google says, “(particularly, the new ones in Ubuntu Lucid).” “Flash content when using nspluginwrapper should be clickable again,” another change is described. Also on the Linux front, one security hole has been patched: “Fixed a crash caused by a premature application data record in the middle of an SSL handshake,” its description goes. Known issues are mentioned regarding the autofill function of the browser, although these are detailed elsewhere.