Google's Chrome is so well established in the browser-market that it's easy to forget that it was only released two years ago. To celebrate the anniversary, the developers have taken the latest version out of beta, officially launching Chrome 6.
Of course, this is just a good excuse for the company to show-off how far its browser has come in that time. Apparently, the latest version has been given further optimisations that make it three-times faster at rendering JavaScript than the first stable release.
The main new feature is the Autofill function with support for multiple different identities. Synchronisation of bookmarks, form-data and history has also been improved and expanded, while the Omnibox has been modified, further streamlining the interface.
The Chrome team also took the opportunity to look forward, highlighting features that will start to appear in upcoming versions. Hardware-accelerated rendering is obviously on the cards, as well as the launch of the Chrome Web Store. Google's plan is to present a single marketplace for developers to sell web-apps, programs and extensions, in a similar vein to the Android Market.
These updates should also start arriving more frequently, as the developers plan to accelerate the Chrome release-schedule to around six-weeks - half of the current 12-week time-frame.
The latest version of Chrome is available for download now for those who want to join in with the birthday celebrations. More details on this release can be found at the Chrome Blog or in our coverage of the last beta-release.
