Google Chrome 10 Launches: Speed, Security and Syncing Highlighted

Google just released their Chrome 10 browser which only hit beta three weeks ago. There are some nice updates, including an important one which won’t be seen by the eye.

Chrome 10 Speed Improvements:

As far as updates you can see, and feel, there is a nice jump in the speed of Chrome. Google says the new browser should result in a 30 to 40% speed increase according to their benchmarks (see the chart below).

Aaa2

Chrome 10 Security Enhancements:

For those who are concerned about web security – and shouldn’t we all be? – there is a new feature called “Sandboxing” which keeps the web page in each tab separate from the other tabs. So, if one browser tab’s page crashes or freezes due to bad or malicious code, only that tab will crash. Also, any malware opened in one page cannot access information in the other tabs. If you are opening a page that asks for a password and it is not encrypted it cannot be accessed by another page with malicious code that tries to leach this information.

Google explains Sandboxing in Google Chrome further in the video below:

Chrome 10 Preferences and Settings Changes:

Something else that Google is highlighting with this new release is the new settings feature. Instead of a separate dialog box it comes as a tab looking just like another browser page. You access it via the little tool icon that looks like a wrench in the upper right corner of the browser. Clicking on “options” from the drop down box opens up the new settings tab. Mac users will find the word “preferences” instead of “options.” Probably the most useful new feature in the settings box is the search function. When looking for a specific setting, just start typing as if you are searching a webpage.

Screen shot 2011 03 08 at 2 36 02 PM

Because the new settings page is a webpage, it has its own URL. This will be helpful when a user is trying to help someone else change a setting.For Example, let’s say you’re helping your mom clear data to remove advertising tracking cookies. You can open up the settings page in your own browser, click on under the hood along the left-hand side, and there you will find the “Clear Browsing Data” button. Now just copy the URL and paste it into an e-mail to mom. Tell her to click the link and find the button.

Below is a video demonstrating the new features of the Settings page in Google Chrome 10:

Chrome Syncing Expands:

Screen shot 2011 03 08 at 2 42 32 PM

With Google Chrome 10, users can also sync the user data.The user can either sync everything or he or she can choose from the following:

  • apps purchase from the chrome app store
  • autofill information
  • bookmarks
  • extensions
  • passwords
  • preferences
  • themes

This makes using multiple computers easier. To matter which computer you use, so long as you use Chrome 10, you can have your customizations in place. This is not new if you’ve used the beta version.

We’ve been using the beta version for a number  of weeks. It has been a little bit unstable, but other than that it is a nice alternative to Internet Explorer or Firefox. Now that it is out of beta, we recommend that everyone give it a try to see if they like it. Hopefully, the instability we experienced will be gone. It was very rare, but we did have the occasional freeze. The good news is with Chrome, when one page freezes, the whole browser doesn’t always go down.

Related Posts

Advertisement