Google Chrome Out of Beta and Getting Rave Reviews

Google Chrome 1.0 is available for download, it has passed its beta stage in a 100 days from its beta launch. This is a creditable achievement for the guys working on Chrome considering that Gmail is still in the beta phase – but then I guess that is a far bigger project with much greater scope for application tie-ins.

This version is only for Windows. The Linux and Mac versions could be out in early 2009. Google Chrome together with Firefox is sure to chip into Internet Explorer’s market share. Google Chrome performs in accordance to universal web standards which has always been recognized as a weakness of IE. Google Chrome, in fact, will come pre-loaded on PCs from next year. As of now it is not clear as to which PC manufacturers have agreed to this. Rumors are that it could be Dell.

Page loads are 1.4 times faster in the finished product as compared to the beta version. Form auto-fill and RSS support are some of the features that are on the way. The bookmark manager has been tweaked. Protection for user privacy has been strengthened with features such as Google Chrome’s Sandbox Technology and Safe Browsing. Browser stability, plug-in performance, and audio-visual performance are some of the other features that have caught the attention of users who have downloaded the finished Google Chrome.