Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Google released a new beta of their Chrome browser today posting a claimed 30% gain in speed as well as some new feature improvements.  One of the big additions is themes allowing the browser to more like Microsoft’s Bing search engine that has been moving up the search charts.  Bing styles its page with pretty pictures and now Google has put some of that feel into Chrome.

The main update areas focus improvements like a customizable “new tabs” page allowing you to move around the quick open tabs that were previously your most popular stuff.  Now you can control what you (and perhaps others) see when opening a new tab.

Also tweaked is the Omnibox.  Chrome’s combo of an address box and a search box gets updated with a drop down list with context icons so you’ll know the suggestions are to a website, wiki, shopping site, or other.  That is a handy change plus it just looks “more gadgety”.

Chrome now has a whole gallery of themes for users to select from, not unlike Gmail, but they look much cooler.  Users can match their theme to their mood or compliment their outfits I suppose.  Also, some HTML5 features squeeze into this build for video tags and web workers.

To try out this beta, users can simply download the latest beta and have a go at it.  Only one version of Chrome can be installed, so it is all or nothing.  Google does warn you that the beta’s are a little rough around the edges, but for tech-foward folks like you, I am sure you trade off some rough edges for being on the edge.

Download page: [Google]