14 DAY TRIAL // Google Chrome 5.0.375.126 has been released to the Stable channel for Mac, Linux, and Windows, Google has announced, mentioning that this version updates the Flash plugin available with the browser. Adobe has recently confirmed that H.264 hardware acceleration support has been built right in the standalone player.
Jason Kersey, of the Google Chrome team, reports: “Google Chrome 5.0.375.126 has been released to the Stable channel on Linux, Mac, and Windows. This version contains an updated version of the Flash plugin.”
As users would expect, Google Chrome 5.0.375.126 includes Flash enhancements noted recently by Adobe, including H.264 video hardware decoding.
According to the makers of the popular Flash Player, version 10.1 introduces hardware-based H.264 video decoding “to deliver smooth, high quality video with minimal overhead across supported mobile devices and PCs.”
“Using available hardware to decode video offloads tasks from the CPU, improving video playback performance, reducing system resource utilization, and preserving battery life,” Adobe Systems notes.
Before today’s build was available, the latest downloadable stable version of Chrome was 5.0.375.125. When Google launched it in July, the updated build patched a number of security holes, but also deployed workarounds for two critical vulnerabilities where the root cause lied in external components.
The same Jason Kersey announced late last week that the Chrome Dev Channel had been updated to 6.0.472.25 for all platforms. Kersey said the new version included changes for all platforms, such as UI updates and stability fixes.
The Google staffer made a note for Windows users in particular, saying that “Launching Chrome after installing may not work correctly if other browsers are running and set as default.”
As usual, those who download and use Chrome on their Macs are encouraged to report any issues they may encounter at http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/entry.