IPFS News Link • Technology: Software
IPFS News Link • Technology: Software
Chrome 4.0 is still in beta release for the Apple Mac
and Linux, and while extensions are available for Linux, they are still
in development for the Mac and may not be released for up to a year.
Google
has three channels for the release of Chrome: a developer preview for
testing, a beta channel for refining the features, and a stable channel
for general release after thorough testing. When a stable version is
released it is automatically delivered to all users in the stable
channel, and it also becomes available for manual downloading and
updating of the beta version.
Google’s Product Manager Ian Fette said the extensions use a
multi-process technology that ensures they do not slow down the browser
or cause it to crash. Extensions are among the features that have made
Mozilla Firefox such a popular browser. They allow users to add
functions to their browsers, such as one-click links to favorite applications or news updates, and other helpful shortcuts for common tasks.
Chrome 4.0 for Windows has several Java and HTML5 application
programming interfaces (APIs) including the Web SQL database for
storing data on the computer in a structured manner, Web Sockets (which
sends data over a persistent two-way communication channel), and Web
Storage (which allows websites to store data
on the local PC). It also includes bookmark synchronization to allow
users to share bookmarks across several computers without the need to
copy or recreate them each time you use a different computer. Bookmark
synch is also available for Linux users, but not yet for the Mac.
Google says its Chrome 4.0 browser is much faster, and Mozilla’s
Dromaeo DOM core tests showed it has boosted speed by 42 percent over
the last stable release, and 400 percent since the first version.
Chrome was faster than Mozilla Firefox 3.6 in three of the four tests.
The stable version of Chrome 4.0 is available for download at the Google website.
Video: Using Extensions on Google Chrome (for PCs).