Google readying Mac, Linux versions of Chrome 2.0

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Dan Warne09 January 2009, 1:49 PM

Google has a swathe of new functionality ready for Chrome 2.0, along with Mac and Linux support. Here's what's inside.

Google only just released the final (non-beta) version of its Chrome browser on December 11, but that hasn't stopped it from working full-bore on the next version of Chrome, 2.0.

According to the Chromium site (Chromium is the core rendering engine of the Chrome browser), the following features are already available in a pre-release version of Chrome 2.0 -- and note the specific references to Mac and Linux versions:

Build 156.1 has all of the code changes from the main line of the source code since 154.0 was branched in October (revisions 2745 - 7599). There are too many changes to enumerate specific bug fixes. These notes cover the major changes:

• New version of WebKit. WebKit is the open source code Google Chrome uses to render web pages (HTML and CSS). 1.0.154.36 used basically the same version of WebKit as Safari 3.1, but the WebKit team has made a lot of improvements since that was released. 156.1 uses WebKit version 528.8 or, more precisely, revision 39410 from the WebKit source tree. In addition to fixing bugs and enabling features like full-page zoom and autoscroll, the new version also enables some nifty CSS features:
• CSS gradients
• CSS canvas drawing
• partial implementations of CSS reflections  and CSS masks
• Form Autocomplete. Google Chrome remembers what you've typed into fields on web pages. If you type in the same form again, it will show any previous values that match what you've typed so far. You can disable Form autocomplete on the Minor Tweaks tab of the Options dialog.  (Note: this is like the basic form autocomplete available in Firefox or Internet Explorer. It is not the same as the form fill feature in Google Toolbar.)
  
• Full-page zoom. Previously, page zoom (Ctrl++ or Ctrl+-) increased or decreased only the text on a page. Zoom now scales everything on the page together, so pages look correct at different zoom levels.
• Spell-checking improvements. You can now enable or disable spell checking in a text field by right-clicking in the field. You can also change the spell-checking language by right clicking. To enable spell-checking in a language, add it to the list of 'languages you use to read web sites' in the Fonts and Languages dialog ([Wrench] > Options > Minor Tweaks > Fonts and Languages). Note that Google Chrome doesn't have spell-checking dictionaries for every language you can add to this list.
• Autoscroll. Many users have asked for this and (thanks to our WebKit update), we now offer autoscrolling. Middle-click (click the mousewheel on most mice) on a page to turn on autoscroll, then move the mouse to scroll the page in any direction.
• Docking dragged tabs. When you drag a tab to certain positions on the monitor, a docking icon will appear.  Release the mouse over the docking icon to have the tab snap to the docking position instead of being dropped at the same size as the original window. Docking positions are:
• Monitor top: make the dropped tab maximized.
• Monitor left/right: make the dropped tab full-height and half-width, aligned with the monitor edge.
• Monitor bottom: make the dropped tab full-width and half-height, aligned with the bottom of the monitor.
• Browser-window left/right: fit the browser window and the dropped tab side-by-side across the screen.
• Browser-window bottom: fit the browser window and the dropped tab top-to-bottom across the screen.
• Import bookmarks from Google Bookmarks. The [Wrench menu] > Import bookmarks & settings... option now has a Google Toolbar option to import Google Bookmarks. The bookmarks get imported into your Other bookmarks folder. The bookmarks are not kept in sync; the import process simply reads in the current set of online bookmarks.
• New SafeBrowsing implementation. SafeBrowsing is now faster, more reliable, and uses the disk less often. 
• Use different browser profiles. You can start a new browser window that uses a different profile (different bookmarks, history, cookies, etc.). Use [Wrench menu] > New window in profile. When you create a new profile, you can name it and add a shortcut to your Desktop. 
• Update the V8 Javascript engine to version 0.4.6.0 (from 0.3.9.3).
• New network code. Google Chrome now has its own implementation of the HTTP network protocol (we were using the WinHTTP library on Windows, but need common code for Mac and Linux). We fixed a few bugs in HTTP authentication and made Google Chrome more compatible with servers that reply with invalid HTTP responses. We need feedback on anything that's currently broken, particularly with proxy servers, secure (https) sites, and sites that require log in. 
• New window frames on Windows XP and Vista, supporting windows cascading and tiling, and other window-management add-in programs.
• Experimental user script support (similar to Greasemonkey). You can add a --enable-user-scripts flag to your Google Chrome shortcut to enable user scripts. See the developer documentation for details.
• A new HTTPS-only browsing mode. Add --force-https to your Google Chrome shortcut, and it will only load HTTPS sites. Sites with SSL certificate errors will not load.
  

Information on how to download Google Chrome 2.0 via Chrome's auto updater is here. Essentially, you need to download the Google Chrome "Channel Changer" and specify that instead of just receiving stable release updates, you want to receive developer versions.

You can also sign up to receive updates on the Mac version of Google Chrome, which Google says it is working on "as hard as possible" to release. There's a similar page for Linux users wanting to receive updates here.