An article written by Richard MacManus from ReadWriteWeb suggests that Google Chrome’s battle is with Firefox, and not with Internet Explorer as many think.

They base this data on their Google Analytic data that is collected from their website, with users of the site being described as early adopters.

ReadWriteWeb data shows a big drop in Firefox users over the last 12 months, from 54% to 39%, while Chrome has enjoyed a jump from 7% to 18%, all while Internet Explorer usage has stayed constant at around 25%. These statistics make this theory sound plausible.

We can’t vouch for these figures in our own statistics, but it is interesting none the less. Market Share data from Net Applications shows that Firefox is still gaining share slowly, while Chrome is also growing, and Internet Explorer is on a one way slop down.

This would suggest that Firefox may be taking users away from Internet Explorer, but that older and more experienced Firefox users are taking the plunge to Google’s Chrome browser.

Either way, the entrance of Chrome into the market has surely stirred things up. Statistics over the next few months will be very interesting, with yesterdays release of Chrome for Mac and Linux.

The Chromium team has sure been working hard, with Google Chrome 6.0.401.1 hitting the Dev Channel for Windows, Mac and Linux users.

This means Chrome 5 is now feature complete, and will continue to make its way from the Beta Channel to the stable release.

Not much has changed so far, with a list of changes available in the Google Chrome Releases blog. There is however one known issue with this build; hitting enter in some form fields does not submit the form. This bug is expected to be fixed in the next Dev Channel update.

Current Chrome Dev Channel users will automatically receive the new update, while new ‘daring’ users can get details on how to get this latest build from the Chromium website.

Google has pushed out a new version of Chrome 5 to beta testers which is between 30% and 35% faster than previous beta releases in the V8 and SunSpider benchmark tests.

Early results suggest that Google Chrome 5 beta is now faster than Opera 10.5x, taking back the fastest browser crown.

Other new features in Google Chrome 5.0.375.29 include HTML5 Features; Geolocation, App Cache, web sockets, file drag-and-drop along with Integrated Flash Player Plugin and Preferences synchronisation.

Along with the release, the Chrome team have created a video to show you just how fast the browser is, in a very creative and entertaining way.

Google Chrome 5 beta can be downloaded for Windows, Mac and Linux.

A video of the showing the making of the Google Chrome Speed Test video can be seen after the break.

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Google Chrome 4.1.249.1064 has been released to the stable channel for Windows users.

The update includes two bug fixes, one of which solves a bug that causes slow JavaScript performance.

Three security holes have also been closed, all of which were rated as high.

A more detailed description of each of these issues can be found in the change log.

Windows users will automatically receive the update, while new users can download Chrome from the Google Chrome website.

Google has pushed out an update to its Chrome browser, taking its stable version to 4.1.249.1059.

The latest release closes seven security holes, 4 of which were rated as high,  with the other 3 rated as medium.

A full list of security holes that were fixed can be seen in the release notes.

The browser will automatically update itself for Windows Chrome users, or can be downloaded from the Chrome website.

Google has removed the http:// from new development builds of it’s Chrome browser.

The change was noticed when a user posted a bug report in the Chromium issue tracker, to which a Chrome developer replied and stated that this is a new feature, and not a bug.

Currently when you copy and paste a the URL from these development builds, the http:// will be missing, but this is expected to change in the new future.

https:// and ftp:// are still displayed for security reasons, but some argue this is inconsistent.

This feature will eventually make its way into the standard browser.

The WebKit team have announced WebKit2 is on it’s way, the popular rendering engine found in Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome web browsers.

“WebKit2 is designed from the ground up to support a split process model, where the web content (JavaScript, HTML, layout, etc) lives in a separate process” wrote Anders Carlsson and Sam Weinig. This is similar to what the Chrome team have done, but it allows other developers to use this model right from the framework without having to add an extra application layer.

WebKit2 can currently be compiled for both Mac OSX and Windows users. More information can be found in the WebKit wiki.

No word yet on when this will make its way into the Safari browser, of if Google will be interested in this method over it’s own for Chrome.

The Chrome development team have today announced a new partnership with Adobe which bundles Adobe’s Flash with Google Chrome browser.

The latest development builds include Adobe Flash Player 10.1.51.95 (10.1 beta 3), and allows Chrome users to receive updated Flash updates automatically without the need of user intervention.

“The traditional browser plug-in model has enabled tremendous innovation on the web, but it also presents challenges for both plug-ins and browsers. The browser plug-in interface is loosely specified, limited in capability and varies across browsers and operating systems. This can lead to incompatibilities, reduction in performance and some security headaches” explains Google.

This move will ensure participating plug-ins are always up to date, increasing browsers security, while also integrating plug-ins tighter within the browser ensuring they become more stable.

Mozilla is also in on the plan, with Google using Mozilla’s next generation browser plug-in API. Other plug-ins such as Adobe’s PDF reader are expected to come further down the track.

Adobe’s Flash Player can be found from today with today’s dev channel update for Chrome; version 5.0.360.4 for Windows and Mac and 5.0.360.5 for Linux.

Google has pushed out a small update to Google Chrome, taking it to version 4.1.249.1045 on Windows.

The update fixes a crash bug, and adds a new option to disable the new translate feature. This release also closes a security hole which was rated as low and would crash the browser upon receiving a bad FTP response.

Information on these two crash bugs can be read in issues 38857 and 38845.

The update will be pushed out to Windows Chrome users automatically, or alternatively, you can download the browser from the Google Chrome website.

Google has pushed out Chrome 4.1.249.1042 to Windows users.

Not much was changed in this release, with only one change solving an issue with some extensions not installing from the Google Chrome extensions gallery. This fixes issue 38220.

The update will be pushed out to all Chrome users, while new users can download the browser from the Google Chrome website.