Google has just opened up Chrome’s dev channel. The dev channel gives early access to new features and bug fixes. Google promises to release Chrome updates to the dev channel frequently, providing webmasters the ability to test their sites and script with the latest version of the Chrome browser.

Google does warn however that dev channel releases are prone to be less stable than their Beta cousins released on the main Google Chrome website.

To subscribe to the dev channel, you simply need to download and install the Google Chrome Channel Chooser. Full details and installation instructions can be found on the dev channel website.

With the release of Google Chrome, John Resig has performed JavaScript benchmark tests on a wide variety of browsers on both Windows Vista and XP. These browsers include:

• Chrome 0.2
• Safari 4
• Safari 3.1.2
• Opera 9.5.2
• Firefox 3.1
• Firefox 3.0.1
• IE7
• IE8 Beta 2

Testing, using three benchmarking tools; SunSpider, V8 Benchmark, and Dromaeo, has produced some interesting results. Results show that Google Chrome is ahead in all but one benchmark test – very impressive for a browser that is still in its early beta stages. It shows the performance of the new V8 JavaScript engine and the power of the WebKit rendering engine found in both Chrome and Safari.

You can read the full JavaScript Performance Rundown article to see the other (not-so)surprissing results.

Google Chrome browser in action

Google has just thrown a huge spanner into the browser war with the release of their new web browser, Google Chrome. According to Google, “Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.”

Early testing seems very promising, and I have found the browser to be fast and responsive, even though it is still in beta at version 0.2. There still seem to be a few rough edges, but I would think we will see these ironed out as we see new releases.

Built on WebKit technology, Google Chrome includes some useful new features, including:

• Address bar under each tab
• Individual windows are in their own “sandbox”
• Thumbnails of your favourite sites
• One search bar for searching and typing URLs

In the next few days I plan to give a more indepth review of Google Chrome as I have more time to play with the browser. If you haven’t already, you can check Google Chrome out at http://www.google.com/chrome/.

How have you found Google Chrome so far?