What's New in Google Chrome 6?

Faster and simpler Chrome 6 out now

Bangalore: Google has released the latest version of its Chrome browser, the Chrome 6. The newest edition of the browser engine claims to be faster and simpler with a discreet interface. The Chrome 6 stable is build for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.

Google has made some changes in the overall appearance of the browser. They include a revised color scheme and a cleaned up URL box. The Omnibox combines two menus into one and relocates the buttons. The future promises a lot more for Chrome and new apps are in the offing and will be made available through the Chrome Web Store.

Google first launched the browser in the year 2008 and since then Chrome has went through considerable transformations. The browser has been made faster, simpler and safer with more customizable New Tab page, browser themes, side-by-side view, password manager, better privacy controls, Adobe Flash Player, Autofill, automatic translation, HTML5 support and sync for bookmarks, extensions and themes.

Chrome is a major contender in the browser market now and enjoys over 7.5 percent share.

What's New in Google Chrome 6?

Google released the first stable build for Chrome 6. The new version has a simplified user interface: there's a single menu, the "go" button has been removed, the browser no longer shows "http://" in the address bar, the bookmark button has been moved to the right and the toolbar has a new color scheme.



Chrome 6 adds support for form autofill and you can now synchronize autofill data, extensions and all their settings. Extension sync is probably the coolest new feature in Chrome 6 because you can take your extensions with you, not matter what computer your are using.

Another new feature is the support for WebM videos. "WebM is an open, royalty-free, media file format designed for the web," which is already supported by software like Opera, VLC, Winamp and by YouTube. Watch this video in Chrome 6 or switch to YouTube's HTML5 player.

There's also a feature that's disabled by default (probably because it's buggy): the built-in PDF viewer. You can enable it by typing chrome://plugins/ in the address bar and clicking "Enable" next to "Chrome PDF Viewer".

Some other changes:

* Chrome has a new shortcut for toggling the bookmarks bar (Ctrl+Shift+B);

* if you mouse over a link to a page that has a long URL, Chrome will show the entire address in the status bar after about 3 seconds;

* Chrome's extension manager (chrome://extensions/) links to the extension gallery pages.

Google automatically updates the browser to the new version, but you can manually check for updates by selecting "About Google Chrome" from the unified menu. If that doesn't work, download Chrome 6 from google.com/chrome.

Happy 2nd birthday, Google Chrome!