Google Pushes Chrome To Version 17 Beta

Google has pushed its popular web browser Chrome to version 17 beta on Thursday and has packed it with several new features which are aimed towards improving the speed and security of the browser. One of the most notable features of this version of the browser is that it will start loading web pages in the background even before the user has finished typing the URL of a site in the address bar.

In a post on the Chrome Blog, Google Software Engineer Dominic Hamon said that “if the URL auto-completes to a site you’re very likely to visit, Chrome will begin to pre-render the page”. The main advantage of pre-rendering is that it reduces time to a great extent between pressing enter and seeing the fully loaded web pages. In some cases, the web page is visible instantly.

For example, if you often visit Chromeplugins.org, then typing the letter “C” will auto fill www.chromeplugins.org URL. Pre-rendering follows a tradition of Google trying to load a site quickly. Google has already introduced Google Instant in Chrome which loads search results before one finish typing.

Other Notable Features

Other features of this version of the web browser include improvements in Chrome’s safe browsing technology which aims to protect users from a large number of malware attacks. In his post Hamon said that till now Chrome’s main focus was to protect users against sites which exploited their computer without requiring user interaction. But now there are a number of malicious websites which convince users to download malicious files. These sites even claim that the files are anti-virus products. Chrome 17 will protect users from such downloads.

If the browser finds that the file you are about to download is bad or it is hosted on a site where there are high percentage of harmful downloads, then the browser will warn users and ask them not to download such a file. The concept is loosely based on Microsoft (Internet Explorer 9) which protects users from downloading malicious files based on “application reputation.” Chrome 17 beta version will now be available as a free download for Windows XP, Vista and 7. Apart from it, Google has also updated Chrome 16 to version 16.0.912.75 which addresses several security flaws, three of which were high-risk security vulnerabilities.