Google Boosts Chrome’s Speed with New Beta
Once again, Google is upping the ante in the browser speed wars. After taking the “beta” tag off of Google Chrome in December, the company has been updating two release channels: developer and stable. Now, the company is re-introducing the beta channel with the latest Chrome 2.0 beta release.
Speed is a strong focus of this new release. According to the Google Chrome blog, the new beta version can process JavaScript 25% faster than the current stable channel version based on the V8 benchmark. When using the SunSpider benchmark, the 2.0 beta will process JavaScript 35% faster. Compared to the original beta, Chrome 2.0 beta is touted as being nearly twice as fast.
The company has also added a handful of new features to Chrome 2.0 beta. Some of these additions include form autofill, a full-page zoom, autoscroll when you click your mouse’s scroll button, and the ability to drag tabs. The new dragging tabs feature lets you put your tabs in side-by-side symmetrically-sized windows by dragging a tab outside of the original browser window. Check out the video below for a better idea of how this works.
Even though Google has a history of keeping products in beta for extended lengths of time, it’s still important to remember that beta versions are more likely to have bugs or missing features than a full release version. In the case of the Chrome 2.0 beta, some users have reported problems with password management.
Last month, Apple introduced its own souped-up version of the Safari browser and claimed it was faster than Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox. If Google’s Chrome speed claims are true, then it would be interesting to see how all of the browsers compare in the browser wars.
