Google has released a new beta version of its Chrome browser that offers a significant improvement in JavaScript speed, fresh sync options and revamped browser settings.
“With a new speed boost that we previewed in December, Chrome’s JavaScript engine V8 runs compute-intensive JavaScript applications even more quickly than before,” explained product manager Jeff Chang.
“In fact, this beta release sports a whopping 66% improvement on the V8 benchmark suite over our current stable release.”
The latest beta iteration of Chrome also boasts a preliminary implementation of GPU accelerated video – allowing surfers with capable graphics hardware to experience a significant decrease (up to 80%) in CPU usage.
In addition, users can now synchronize (encrypted) saved passwords across multiple computers, along with bookmarks, preferences, themes and extensions.
So, what else does the new Chrome offer?
Well, Google has reworked the look and feel of the settings dialogs. Instead of launching in a separate window, they now open in a tab.
But perhaps more importantly, Google added two new settings that make it even easier to customize the popular browser.
So, if you can’t remember where a particular configuration setting is, simply type its name into the search box to see the settings that match as you type.
You can also now jump directly to most settings pages using their own dedicated URLs, without navigating through a sequence of windows.
