Chrome slides back to beta while IE8 promises the world but Firefox is still closing the gap. After dropping the beta tag and launching Chrome 1.0 in December last year it seems that Google have taken their browser back to the drawing board to apply the feedback they have obtained from the last six months.
Users can download the ‘shiny new’ beta version while will removed Chrome 1.0 automatically. The improvements are mainly focussed around speed and Google maintains this is a step in the right direction, as opposed to an admission that Chrome was not ready to lose the beta label.
Just before Chrome’s release there were reports of 2400 ‘open issues’ from a bug tracking feature which might account for this latest update. The premature release was accounted for due to Microsoft’s aggressive strategies in the search area and Google not wishing to have users go through other browsers to access their core business.
In the same week IE8 has been launched and none too soon for Microsoft. The disastrous security lapse with the previous version had Microsoft themselves stating that security had been compromised and it was unsafe to use until the issue had been resolved. Now they have allegedly beefed up the security and dropped in some additional features to boot.
As usually speed and security are the names of the game. They have introduced an accelerator feature which enables users to right click on a word to speed up the search process, minimalising the copying and pasting necessary when refining search results. There have been improvements on the security front which has improved detection of malware and malicious script.
Whether these security measures will stick is another question. It seems that as soon as new security measures are introduced they are back-doored by an overzealous security enthusiast. Also there seems to have been little improvement in the add-on area, which has rendered Firefox the favourite of the search professionals.
Other upgrades include improved tabbed search and other general aesthetic alterations such as image lead search displays. They still dominate the browser statistics however IE comes installed on Microsoft computers which despite being ruled illegal by the EU still goes on. The gap is closing slightly in general usage and web professionals show an almost clean split between the two browsers.
Chrome seems to have a mountain to climb at the moment and the battle has spread to built in browsers on mobiles, with Microsoft’s corporate machine churning out big money deals over the last six months. Time will tell if the new security measures of IE8 will make a difference to their poor track record and for the time being, people in the know lean toward Firefox.
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