Google Chrome

Freeware

Current Version: 5.0.375.99 (July 8, 2010)

Google Chrome - available for some time for Microsoft Windows - is at long last available for the Mac.

Google Chrome sets itself apart form the competition with the following key features:

• Speed - Google Chrome loads pages and runs web applications in a snap.
• Stability - Google Chrome is built for stability. If an individual tab freezes or crashes, the other tabs are unaffected.
• Security - Browse the web more safely with malware and phishing protection built into Google Chrome.
• New Tab page - Visit your favorite websites easily from the New Tab page. When you open a new tab, the sites you visit most often are readily available.
• Omnibox - Use the Omnibox to type both web addresses and searches in Google Chrome.
• Themes - Customize your browser with themes from artists around the world.
• Incognito mode - When you don't want your website visits to be recorded in your browser history, you can browse in incognito mode. (A handy feature for planning surprise gifts and birthdays!)

This release is solid, but lacks a few features from its Windows sibling for the time being. This includes the ability to launch a folder of bookmarks in a set of tabs (although you can open them in a new window), and you can't customize font display.

The Google release blog has more information about what's new in this release, but the thrust of version 5.0.375.99 is:

• Low OOB read with WebGL.
• Medium Isolate sandboxed iframes more strongly.
• High Memory corruption with invalid SVGs.
• High Memory corruption in bidi algorithm.
• Low Crash with invalid image.
• High Memory corruption with invalid PNG (libpng bug).
• High Memory corruption in CSS style rendering.
• Low Annoyance with print dialogs.
• Low Crash with modal dialogs.