Google Returns Chrome To Beta, Touts Speed Boost

CWmike writes "Google yesterday reversed its decision to ditch the beta label from its Chrome browser, saying it is restoring the moniker to some builds to get faster feedback to developers. 'Since we took the 'beta' tag off Google Chrome in December, we've been updating two release channels: developer and stable,' said Brian Rakowski, a Chrome product manager, in a new blog Google kicked off on Tuesday. 'With our latest release, we're re-introducing the beta channel for some early feedback.' The first beta, Chrome 2.0.169.1, includes several new features, said Rakowski, and it boasts a significant speed increase over the current stable version of the browser, 1.0.154.48. According to Google's tests, the beta is 35% faster than the stable build when measured by the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite, and 25% faster on the company's own V8 tests." Reader Al notes too that "Google has launched Chrome Experiments, a site where Javascript coders can upload projects that make use of Chrome's speed and processing abilities. The site already features a handful of cool 'experiments' including a balls that jump between browser windows, a gravitationally-challenged version of the Google homepage and a game that runs through nine different browsers. It's cool stuff alright, but some experts wonder whether browser security might be a more important thing to focus on."

Comments

No Linux Release != Evil

[andrewd18]

Just because a company's informal motto is "Don't be evil." doesn't mean they have to release their products for Linux.

Now I think it'd be unwise if they didn't release it for Linux, but it definitely doesn't make them evil.

Re:No Linux Release != Evil

[SultanCemil]

I'm just saying, on a scale of 0 to 100 (0 being kittens rolling around, 100 being Vader running hell), not releasing Chrome for Linux is somewhere around 70. That's all. Fell free to disagree. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Re:No Linux Release != Evil

[xant]

Kittens are a zero? Man, kittens can *kill* you. I almost choked on one once.

worst summary ever

[jgarra23]

Chrome is not in beta, there has ALWAYS been beta builds around for Chromium & they are advertising those builds more since the new features are pretty solid (and the speed too) but Chrome is NOT in beta.

Re:Is it going to come to Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an unofficial Linux build called Chromium:

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/

A story ran on it yesterday on a familiar website... I think it's called "Slashdot" or something:

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/17/2345216

Noo . This is the 2.0 Beta

[AlienRancher]

Google has not reversed their position. This is the beta for what will be 2.0 eventually. The 1.0 branch is and will be release. See: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/17/2345216

Re:Is it going to come to Linux?

[basementman]

I tried Chromium and at this stage it is so buggy and slow that it is totally unusable. At this point I am forced to run FireFox with a bunch of add ons to try and mimic chromium's functionality, but that won't help you get to the speed of Google Chrome.

Re:Who asked for this?

[rockNme2349]

Google's applications all run based on javascript. The current browsers didn't run javascript very fast, so performance lagged. Google released a browser and spat really fast javascript in the face of mozilla and microsoft. Next thing you know firefox and ie have new releases with faster javascript to compete with chrome. People switching to chrome is just a side affect for google. They're goal of making other browsers faster is completed. I have to say, evil or not, they're really smart guys, and know how to get what they want.