It’s been a year since Google first released Chrome, its much-talked about browser, and already the company that makes a habit of rapid and sudden releases, is already working on version 4.0 of the browser. Whether or not the scale of the changes actually warrant calling the latest development release version 4.0, the one thing that is definite is that Google is doing something special with its web rendering engine.<\/p>\n
But, take a step back first. It was on September 1 2008 that Google first announced that it was working on a browser called Chrome. A day later the company released a beta version for Windows and most of the IT world was caught completely off guard. Of course there was speculation but until a Google-produced comic explaining Chrome was leaked on September 1 no-one, apart from Chrome developers, actually had any solid evidence of its pending release.<\/p>\n
The first impression of Chrome 1.0 was that it didn’t look a lot like other browsers. It’s design spoke of attempts to free up as much screen space as possible with a minimal set of menu items and all open tabs housed in a tab bar right at the top of the page. It’s streamlined design gave the impression of speed, something that has become the marque of Chrome and which continues to today.<\/p>\n
The first, and second release, of Chrome was available for Windows users only. It was a move that frustrated many Linux and Mac OSX users, but one that most have to come to live with. In fact, is seems to be relatively certain that Linux and Mac users will not be regularly included in the formal release schedule of Chrome for some time to come. Ever since its initial launch in September last year Google has said that was planning Linux and Mac versions. But, a year on and with version 3.0 now in beta for Windows and still no alternative versions in sight, a change seems unlikely.<\/p>\n
Instead Google is making its Chromium version available for all platforms. Chromium is the open source project on which Chrome is built and so includes a range of features more cutting edge than the official releases although they are all “development” releases so there is no promise of things working perfectly. Last week, almost simultaneously with its 3.0 beta release, Google upped its development version to 4.0, a sudden leap from what looked to be an early 3.0 release.<\/p>\n
Version 3.0 already has a number of new features including the ability to use themes to change the appearance of Chrome. Firefox has long had the ability to be “skinned” with different themes and now Google Chrome can do the same. Themes can be browsed and applied directly from the Chrome theme home page. Right now Google has produced a collection of themes that can be used but third-party-designed themes appear to not be available yet.<\/p>\n
The other improvement is in the “speed dial” home screen. Just like Safari and Opera, Chrome users can store their most visited sites as a collection of thumbnails. In previous versions these thumbnails were static and couldn’t be moved around. But in 3.0 Chrome allows users to rearrange the websites as they like. It’s not as impressive an implementation as Safari’s version but it works well enough to be a useful tool.<\/p>\n
With 4.0 the list of new features is fairly short as it has only just entered development but the one addition is bookmark synchronisation. Users can use the feature to synchronise their bookmarks with their Google account and retrieve those from any device. It’s another step forward in pulling users deeper into Google’s domain, something the company has been notably good at over the years.<\/p>\n
But the thing that is most interesting in both Google 3.0 and 4.0 is the significant speed boost in its rendering engine. The V8 javascript rendering engine in both of these versions is enough to leave competitors in the dust and hand Chrome the fastest-browser title.<\/p>\n