Google Chrome 3: New and Improved (Really)

Google's Chrome web Browser has now been available for just over a year, and people all over have been discovering its power and simplicity. If you've been waiting for it to mature a bit, or if you haven't given it any thought...now is the time to act.

Today Google has made Chrome version 3 available to the masses. This, of course, doesn't count the Chrome 3 betas that have already been available to software/internet geeks.

Since the update was waiting for me when I opened Chrome this morning, I gave it a spin to test out the new features they've added. I'm very pleased with the speed of navigation and page rendering/loading. Please keep in mind that I'm not a top-notch geek, so the following is by no means a comprehensive list of the new feature set.

Improved Performance

One of the things that most impresses me is that Chrome 3 uses HTML 5 as a standard. To me and the rest of you average end users out there, this means you're going to see all that embedded media without plugins like a Flash player, because the HTML 5 protocol automagically takes care of rendering dynamic content.

The Look

Many of us love shiny, pretty things. Chrome 3 has finally given us some of that visual swag. The default theme itself is wearing a new slick gradient skin and the navigation icons seem to pop a bit more. Now, however, you're not going to be "stuck" with the default theme if it starts to bore you. They've given us some very cool and colorful themes to tart up the browser a bit.

Fastest Yet

I definitely see an increase in speed, and so will you. Not just in navigation time, but in page-load terms as well. Even if you have multiple tabs open...doesn't matter. Chrome 3 is beating the pants off my Firefox right now.

As I said above, there are more improvements in Google Chrome version 3 than what I've mentioned. If you want to see the full story, head over to the Official Google Blog.