Google Chrome 5.0 beta

Google has upped the ante even further with the beta release of Chrome 5.0. which it claims is 30 per cent faster than Chrome 4.0.

Google has gone to great lengths to demonstrate just how fast this new version is. posting a video on YouTube of some of the tests it has carried out (http://bit.ly/ firstlook240). The barminess of the video has to be admired, but the fact is that Chrome 5.0 is only a fraction of a second quicker than the previous version - hardly worth all the song and dance.

Chrome 5.0 is pretty much guaranteed to perform where rich media content is concerned and support for HTML5 ensures it will continue to perform well in the future. However, this is rather irrelevant at the moment because you won't come across much content coded in HTML5 right now. and by the time it is commonplace on the web there'll be a newer version of Chrome available anyway.

Chrome 5.0 doesn't look much different to the previous version, but it has significant new features. You can now synchronise the settings on different computers so it looks the same whether you are using your home PC, work PC or laptop.

As well as synchronising preferences, you can install extensions while in 'incognito' mode, so anyone else using your computer won't be able to see what you've been up to. Google claims that a lot of users have requested this feature, which suggests that there are an awful lot of people out there with something to hide.

Probably the most useful feature of the Chrome 5.0 beta, though, is that it will update the Adobe Flash Player plug-in automatically. Flash can be a security headache for all surfers so this is a welcome addition, though Chrome isn't the first browser to have this feature - Firefox already offers automatic plug-in updates.