In addition to being a more stable product, the recent release of version 17 of the Google Chrome Web browser touts two interesting functions: background page rendering (while you’re entering the site address!) and verification of a Web site’s reputation (useful for sites from which you download files).
The most useful innovation is the mechanism for pre-loading and caching Web pages, thus rendering them significantly faster in the browser. While typing out the URL, this new Chrome will analyze the characters, trying to match it against known website URLs, and will then begin loading a Web page before you’ve even finished entering the site address onto the address bar! Moreover, Chrome will be able to automatically identify the complete address and also store the site’s pages in memory for quicker access.
Some sites may take some time to pre-cache and quickly render pages as the system must ‘learn’ about certain sites in advance.
The second new feature is related to security and can help protect you from malicious downloads. When a threatening file is detected, the browser will warn us against it and advise you to ignore the file. Of course nothing can replace human wisdom and safe surfing practices!
Chrome version 17 is available through the browser’s automatic updater and can also be downloaded from Google’s website.
As we can read on the official blog Chromium, Google also released a Web browser test release of Chrome for Android. Chrome Beta for Android promises to support the latest features of HTML5.
Lastly, for those who yearn for a rival to our affection for either Apple’s IOS or Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, be sure to check out what Google’s been doing with Chromium OS—an operating system for those who use the Web a lot!