Google's Chrome browser version 13 is stable, featuring Instant Pages predictive search technology, print preview for Windows and Linux machines, as well as a better omnibox. Also featuring: 30 bug fixes.
Google has
taken Chrome version
13 stable (technically Chrome 13.0.782.107), fixing several bugs and turning the
search engine's new Instant Pages feature on as the browser's default. The next
step in Google's predictive-search technology, Instant
Pages is based on a Google-developed prerendering technology that prepares
the top search result in the background while a user chooses which link to
click. The company says this saves users two to five seconds on typical
searches.
Ideally,
this technology removes the latency many Web pages exhibit when users click on
them. This could, in turn, possibly entice more people to tap Chrome-which has
a 13.5 percent market share worldwide-as their search browser of choice.
Also
with Chrome 13, print preview is available for Windows and Linux users. The
technology, which is, as usual, not yet available yet for Macs, leverages Google's built-in
PDF viewer and a "print to PDF" option.
Finally,
Chrome's omnibox address bar and search box have been improved to more easily
let users go back to pages they've visited before. Users need only type part of
the Web page's address or title to find matching pages from their search
history in the dropdown menu. While there had been some talk about the omnibox
going away, clearly that's not the case in this iteration.
A major
focus of the 5,200 improvements in the browser is bug fixes. Google and
participating third-party experts found and plugged 30 of them, as the search
engine paid out $17,000 to "bug squashers." "Miaubiz" earned $7,500
for detecting various exploits, including $1,000 each for so-called "use
after free" exploits.
Sergey
Glazunov, a fixture among the bug hunters, netted $3,000 total. That included
$1,500 apiece for finding a cross-origin script injection and cross-origin
violation in base URI handling. See the complete
list of found flaws and payouts in this blog post.
In
other Chrome-related news, Google is now making it possible for developers in a
host of countries to complete merchant account sign up and start adding their
paid apps to the Chrome Web Store.
Google-which
last month created the In App Payments API to enable developers to receive
payments for applications they sell in the Chrome Web Store in 140 countries-also added the
ability to target or exclude specific markets.
Specifically,
Chrome Web Store developers can publish their apps only to the following
regions: Argentina, Australia, Austria (new), Belgium (new), Brazil, Canada,
Czech Republic (new), Denmark (new), Finland (new), France, Germany, Hong Kong
(new), India, Indonesia (new), Israel (new), Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands,
New Zealand (new), Norway (new), Philippines (new), Poland, Portugal, Russia
(new), Singapore (new), Spain, Sweden (new), Switzerland (new) and the U.S. and
U.K.
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