14 DAY TRIAL // Google Chrome 17 has now landed on Chromebooks, quite a while after it was made available to everyone else. That's the norm though, Chromebooks always receive updates a bit later. Chrome 17 for Chromebooks brings the new Verizon portal, a native photo editor and an improved file browser.
Chrome 17.0.963.54, part of Chrome OS 1412.186.0 comes with all of the new features and improvements that desktop users enjoy as well as some specific ones.
One thing that will mostly be useless to Chromebook users is downloaded file scanning, introduced along with Chrome 17. The browser scans binary, executable files and checks them against a whitelist and a blacklist. It also relies on Google Search's indexing to determine whether the source website is to be trusted.
However, the feature is not of much use on Chromebooks, not that users are complaining about it.
Also new in Chrome 17 is website preloading. As soon as you start typing in the OmniBox, Chrome looks through your browser history and tries to determine whether it can predict with a high degree of accuracy what site you want to reach.
If it believes the prediction is accurate enough, it starts loading the site before you finish typing or press Enter to select the suggested URL.
For Chromebook owners, one big new feature is a revamped Verizon portal. The new portal introduces options such as recurring billing for pre-paid plans. It also allows users to buy more traffic before they run out for the month.
Users that are satisfied with the 100 MB of free traffic that comes with any Chromebook no longer have to provide a credit card.
Also new in Chrome 17 for Chromebooks is the photo editor. It enables users to touch up their photos and do basic edits locally without the need of visiting a photo editing website or installing an app.
The file browser has also seen some improvements in the latest release. Chrome 17 adds support for OpenVPN, which should be a welcomed addition especially for companies, large and small.