Google Chrome 3.0: More Stable and Faster

Google launched Chrome 3.0 on 16 September.Chrome 3.0, which is available only for Windows, drops its beta tag and enters a stable development channel, meaning that the browser is suitable for use by the general public, not just developers or testers willing to put up with crashes or bugs.

Chrome 3.0 brings improvements to the browser's interface, including faster performance and "themes" that allow users to customize how the browser looks.

According to Google, Chrome 3.0 is 25% faster in rendering JavaScript than Chrome 2, which debuted in May, and 150% faster than the original Chrome that launched a little more than a year ago. The browser starts up quickly from users' desktop, and is fast to load web pages and web applications, says the company.

Other improvement included a revamped, cleaner New Tabs page that resembles those found in Apple's Safari and Opera Software's Opera. Users can now rearrange thumbnails of their most-visited websites by simply clicking and dragging mouse. Additionally, they can "pin down" icons to keep them permanently in-place before that they continuously rearrange to show user's most recently visited sites.

Chrome 3.0 upgrades Omnibox, the address bar at the top of the screen where a user type URLs or search terms. Chrome 3.0 Omnibox has added little icons to show users whether the items come from searches, bookmarks, or sites from their browsing history.

Google Chrome 3.0 adds support for HTML5 capabilities, including the 'video' and `audio' tags for integrated embedding of multimedia elements.

Search leader Google is trying very hard to increase its browser marker share which is currently dominated by Microsoft Corp, Internet Explorer. The browser's engineering director at Google set ambitious goals to double its market share within 12 months, and then double it again within 24. The latest data from Web metrics company Net Applications put Google's browser at almost 3% during August.