Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Google boosts speed in Chrome browser

news
Mar 17, 20091 min

Beta release adds multiple features, including autofill and autoscroll

Google unveiled on Tuesday a new beta release of its Chrome browser, offering improvements in speed and capabilities, such as full page zoom.

Detailed in the new Google Chrome Blog, the beta also features form autofill, for filling out forms faster; an autoscroll capability and a way to drag tabs to get side-by-side views.

[ Related: Google touts iPhone, Chrome browser. ]

“The best thing about this new beta is speed — it’s 25 percent faster on our V8 benchmark and 35 percent faster on the Sunspider benchmark than the current stable channel version (of Chrome) and almost twice as fast compared to our original beta version,” said Brian Rakowski, Google product manager, in the blog.

“We’re doing our best to quickly churn out new features as they are available rather than saving them up for occasional major releases,” Rakowski said.

Tuesday’s beta represents a re-introduction of the Chrome beta channel, intended for early feedback, he said. The new blog is intended for posting of feature releases, announcements and updates. 

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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