Google Chrome

Since we first released Google Chrome, the development team has been hard at work improving the stability and overall performance of the browser. In just 100 days, we have reached more than 10 million active users around the world (on all seven continents, no less) and released 14 updates to the product. We're excited to announce that with today's fifteenth release we are taking off the "beta" label!

Google Chrome is a better browser today thanks to the many users who sent their feedback and the many more who enabled automatic crash reports, helping us rapidly diagnose and fix issues. Some of the areas where we've made great progress include:

Better stability and performance of plug-ins (particularly video). Video and audio glitches were among the most common bugs fixed during the beta period. If you had problems watching videos with Google Chrome in the past, you should be pleasantly surprised with the performance now.

Even more speed. Google Chrome starts up fast, loads pages quickly, and just keeps getting faster. Since the first beta, the V8 JavaScript engine runs 1.4 times faster on the SunSpider benchmark and 1.5 times faster on the V8 benchmark — and there is more speed to come.

Bookmark manager and privacy controls. We heard you! Better bookmark features were a top request from our users. It's now easier to switch between another browser and Google Chrome with the bookmark import and export features, and we added a new simple way to manage large numbers of bookmarks, too. We also wanted to make it even easier for you to control your browsing data, so all of the features in Google Chrome which affect user privacy are now grouped in one place with detailed explanations for each one.

We've taken security very seriously from the beginning and we will continue to look for ways to make Google Chrome and all browsers even more secure. Google Chrome's unique sandbox technology creates an additional layer of defense against harmful software, while the Safe Browsing feature provides protection against phishing and malware attacks for many browser users.

We have removed the beta label as our goals for stability and performance have been met but our work is far from done. We are working to add some common browser features such as form autofill and RSS support in the near future. We are also developing an extensions platform along with support for Mac and Linux. If you are already using Google Chrome, the update system ensures that you get the latest bug fixes and security patches, so you will get the newest version automatically in the next few days. If you haven't used Google Chrome for a while, now might be a good time to give it another spin.

Download Google Chrome and try it out. Let us know what you think.

Announced by By Sundar Pichai, VP, Product Management, and Linus Upson, Engineering Director

Plugin for the latest release of Google Chrome

When we launched Google Chrome two months ago, the response was overwhelmingly positive. We got all sorts of support and encouragement from many users, but we also got the most valuable resource we could ask for: feedback! Because of the variety of software and hardware configurations that exist "in the wild," users were able to find a few issues that we hadn't come across. In particular, they reported problems with Google Chrome's support for plugins used to play videos and show PDFs.

I am happy to report that we've made great progress in addressing plugin problems. The release that just went live is packed with plugin fixes, and early developer-channel users noted that plugin performance improved dramatically. You can read more about one of the improvements to viewing PDFs on the official Chromium Blog. Most importantly, if you tried the first version of Google Chrome but found that there were some bugs giving you headaches, give it another try. If you already have Google Chrome, you will get updated automatically, or you can download the latest version from www.google.com/chrome.

We've still got a long list of planned improvements, so stay tuned. And keep the interesting questions, helpful bug reports, and stellar code contributions coming!

Announced by Glenn Wilson, Product Manager

Google Data JavaScript client library with Chrome and Safari

Use the Google Data JavaScript client library with Chrome and Safari

Google Data JavaScript client library has expanded its support to cover our latest browser Chrome as well as Safari 3.x.

Now you can start writing AJAX applications that use the Google Data JavaScript client library and have your apps be compatible with the following desktop browser environments:

• Internet Explorer 6 & 7
• Firefox 2.x & 3.x
• Safari 3.x
• Chrome

The Google Data JavaScript client library is a pure JavaScript library that allows you perform cross-domain AJAX read/write operations for several Google services - Google Calendar, Blogger, Google Contacts, and Google Finance.

Check out some of the creative applications that were written using the Google Data JavaScript client library--

Calendar Visualization using Google Calendar Data API:


Contacts Picker using Google Contacts Data API:


blog.gears using Blogger Data API and the Gears API:


Ready to get started building your own app? Click on the links to the individual services above to use the interactive developer's guides and drop by in the forums if you have any questions and want to chat with other developers.

Announced by Austin Chau, Google Data APIs Team

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Update to Google Suggest

It's a feature designed to make searching both faster and easier. Whether you are typing into the search box on Google Toolbar or Google.com, or the Omnibox in Google Chrome, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. So for example, if you type "bass," Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar." Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like "prog," Google Suggest might offer you refinements such as "programming," "programming languages," "progesterone," or "progressive." Again, these suggestions allow you to enter your searches faster, but also in a way that will more likely get you the results you're looking for.

That's what occurs on the surface of Google Suggest. Here's what happens under the hood. To provide its recommendations Google Suggest needs to know what you've already typed, so these partial queries are sent to Google. For 98% of these requests, we don't log any data at all and simply return the suggestions. For the remaining 2% of cases (which we select randomly), we do log data, like IP addresses, in order to monitor and improve the service.

However, given the concerns that have been raised about Google storing this information -- and its limited potential use -- we decided that we will anonymize it within about 24 hours (basically, as soon as we practically can) in the 2% of Google Suggest requests we use. This will take a little time to implement, but we expect it to be in place before the end of the month.

All data retention is a balance between user privacy and trust on the one hand, and security and innovation on the other. In the case of Google Suggest we decided it's possible to provide a great service while anonymizing data almost immediately. But in other cases - such as our core web search - storing data like IP addresses for a time is crucial to make improvements to search quality, improve security, fight fraud and reduce spam.

You can read more about our privacy policies on the Google Privacy Center, check out the Google Search Privacy: Plain and Simple video for more information about how our server logs work.

Announced by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations

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Google Chrome (BETA) - The New Browser From Google

Google Chrome (BETA) for Windows

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

One box for everything
Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.

Thumbnails of your top sites
Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.

Shortcuts for your apps
Get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.

Download Now

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