14 DAY TRIAL // Google is pressing ahead with the next version of its open-source browser based on the WebKit engine. The Mountain View company is making sure to provide a steady flow of builds on a weekly basis, keeping testers and early adopters in tune with the evolution of Chrome. In fact, Google is moving forward with no less than three Chrome versions, offered in parallel. There is a stable release aimed for the vast majority of end users, a Beta build for testers and a Dev channel release for developers. The latest release of Chrome is a dev channel update that takes the browser up to version Google 2.0.181.1.
“This release contains many localization, crash, and UI behavior fixes,” revealed Jonathan Conradt, engineering program manager, pointing out that it was not just the main version number of the browser that had changed. In this regard, Google Chrome 2.0.181.1 brings to the table WebKit – 530.11, V8 - 1.2.4.1 and Gears – 0.5.21.0.
At the same time, there are a variety of changes introduced with the update. Conradt enumerated the most important: “fixed a common crash when using a French spell-check dictionary. Fixed a regression where maximizing Chrome turned the tab-background black. Improved remote desktop (RDP) performance by using the standard dotted rectangle when moving a tab out. The command line debugger has been replaced by a graphical debugger using the WebKit inspector scripts tab to debug JavaScript running in V8. It is now possible to set proxy setting from the command-line. See the issue for more information.”
While Google Chrome 2.0.181.1 is the last release of the browser up for grabs, the Mountain View-based search engine is also offering the 2.0.172.27 Beta and 1.0.154.65 Stable versions, each snapshot of Chrome's evolution since its introduction in the fall of 2008.
The latest release of Google Chrome is available for download here.