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Google to issue third Chrome beta in 'next few days'

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Stephen Shankland CNET News

Published: 30 Oct 2008 17:49 GMT

Google will soon begin distributing a third beta version of its Chrome web browser, a release that tackles bugs, performance and security weaknesses.

"You will automatically get updated in the next few days," Chrome programme manager Mark Larson said in a mailing list post on Wednesday.

Users can check if a new version is available by clicking the wrench menu and selecting 'About Google Chrome'.

Google Chrome version 0.3.154.9 fixes a security problem that means a site — if it convinces a user to open a pop-up window — could show a different web address than the one that actually supplied the information.

"This flaw could be used to mislead people about the origin of a website, in order to get them to divulge sensitive information," Larson said.

The new beta will also provide better performance and reliability for plug-ins such as Flash and Silverlight; support for scrolling with a touchpad; and better performance and reliability for people who browse the web through a proxy intermediary.

More details are expected to become available on the Chrome release-notes web page, although, at present, that page hasn't been updated.

Although Google aggressively promotes search technology to make people's lives more convenient, the company has concluded it's not a good idea to index the contents of web pages that were accessed over a secure connection. "You can still search your history for the site's address, but not the contents on the page," Google said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Other changes mean that the spell-checker now underlines misspelt words in text-input boxes, and users can right-click on words to add them to a dictionary.

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Also, Google, with some outside help, has tidied up the process for launching standard and Incognito windows, moving the option from the 'Control the current page' menu to 'Control Chrome', among other changes.

In addition, when users download executable programs, such as those ending with .exe or .dll extensions, Chrome now gives them substitute file names until users have confirmed that they really want to download the files. Unconfirmed downloads are deleted when Chrome is closed.

Google released the first Chrome beta in early September and quickly followed up with a second release to fix serious security problems.

Google also offers a faster-moving, but less rigorously tested, developer release of Chrome. The newest beta version is the same as the most recent developer version, except for one new feature: translation of text, such as dialogue boxes and menu commands, into 42 languages.

Chrome is an open-source project, and Google maintains a Chrome issues list for those curious about new priorities. Chrome is still only available on Windows, but Google is working on Mac OS X and Linux versions.

Credit: Third Chrome beta due in days, Google says from CNET News