Google Chrome 3.0.195.21 stable

New stable version of Google Chrome web-browser now sees the light of the day. I have been playing with 3.0.195.21 for a couple of days now and was glad to find out that all what you got used to in Google Chrome is still right on its place. And there is more added to Google’s ability to not spoil things for more than a year now. New features and impressions after the jump.


Under the hood

Not so much as a feature, but anyway Chrome developers claim to give JavaScript performance 150% boost. It shows immediately if you are an experienced Chrome user but if you aren’t you will probably hardly be able to tell. I mean Chrome 3 is blazingly fast but then it was almost like this since the day one. But not so stable. I personally can point out better Flash performance, which by the way is dropped off if you happen to open a HTML5 page. Its goodies are supported in v3.0.195.21 stable as standard.

User interface

User interface has been added the biggest instantly noticeable amount of improvements. First, there are 28 new themes for the browser starting with minimalistic white skin and ending with funky graffiti. Also a minor but useful improvement can be found in the Omnibox. Now when you start typing a search query or an URL it lets you know where all the suggestions come from like search engine, visited links history, etc. Home screen has also changed. The bookmark list at the right is out, instead we have our thumbs in two rows with four thumbs in each. One thumbnail less than before, but now their order is fully customizable. You can arrange them in a plain and simple list also.

The good

Not a single crash even though it was enthusiastically given rich JavaScript pages and pages with Flash to cope with. Chrome 3.0.195.21 did both hands down. It also loads faster from the click on the desktop.

The (not so) bad

I still miss my ninth thumbnail and I couldn’t really find a better theme and as a result left it with the default one at the end of the day. I also miss my list of bookmarks but the bar above is still there to help.