Today Google finally released Google Chrome 3 to the public. Users who are currently using Google Chrome 2 will see an update prompt soon to update to the new release. Everyone else can simply go to the Google Chrome website and download the latest official public release of the browser right there.

The official Google blog has published some benchmarks and other information that shall help convince users to switch to version 3 of the Google browser. The benchmarks show the performance of different releases of Google Chrome with Google Chrome 3 being the fastest and most powerful yet.

Users who have only used Google Chrome in the past will be able to access several new features besides the performance, compatibility and stability gains: This includes a new tab page which is shown when the user opens a blank new tab in the web browser. Other changes include HTML5 capabilities, additions to the Omnibox (the address bar of the browser) and theme support.

Best of all; The confusion is reduced as there are only two versions of the web browser out there currently. The stable Google Chrome 3 which is offered publicly and the developer version that has already reached version 4 and is therefor called Google Chrome 4. It is likely that the confusion will grow again once Google decides to release developer versions of Google Chrome 5.

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The second important addition is about theme support in the web browser. The developers have again turned the rather complex process of installing new Google Chrome themes into a much simpler process. Users who wanted to install themes in the web browser had to replace a file in the Google Chrome directory. The problem with this approach was that it would overwrite the default theme which could cause all kinds of troubles especially for users without backup.

Theme support has now been added officially to the Google browser which means that themes can be directly installed from within the web browser. A basic theme manager is available in the Google Chrome options allowing users to revert back to the default theme after installing a new theme. There is unfortunately no way of displaying the installed themes right now which is something that the developers surely plan to add in a later development stage.

A get themes button is also available in the same menu. This button opens a website that is currently unavailable but is most likely the address of the official Google Chrome theme repository. Two test themes have been created by the Google Chrome developers which can be accessed at the Chromium website. Camo and Snowflake are currently not accessible as well but were earlier on.

Webupd8 have posted screenshots of the Camo theme and the prompt that appears when pointing the Chrome browser to a theme location.

The two changes to the extension engine and theme support are definitely important steps for the Google browser. It is now much easier to work with extensions and themes in the web browser. Future builds will surely continue to improve on that and provide access to a theme manager and working websites where the themes can be downloaded.

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One of the most interesting additions in this new web browser release is the availability of the new tab page which is not included in release Google Chrome versions. The new tab page can only be launched with the command line argument –new-new-tab-page.

The new tab page now includes links to recent activities which lists downloads and recently opened tabs but also a tips and suggestions section which has not been filled with content yet. It is now also possible to move the eight website thumbnails around and pin them in the tab so that they are always accessible there (which resembles Opera’s Speed Dial then). Previously the most visited pages where shown when a new tab was opened according to their hits.

The new version of Google Chrome 3 can be downloaded from the dev channel download page.

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Google Chrome 3 has been published on the dev channel from where it can be downloaded and installed on a computer system running a Microsoft windows operating system. The web browser will update existing Google Chrome installations on the system to the latest beta 3 version of it.

There are not many exciting new features in the release despite the jump from version 2 to 3. The release notes list 16 changes to Google Chrome 2.0.180.0 which has been released about two weeks ago. The most notable changes are multiple crash fixes, support for the video tag and fixes to user interface elements drawing improperly on the screen.

Users who are thinking about installing the latest Google Chrome dev release should be extra careful as this release is not intended to be run in work environments. The list of changes do not really make it a necessity to install Google Chrome 3 yet either.

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