Google has posted its first public beta of Chrome 10. The browser is the first to use the new Crankshaft engine for JavaScript and is as much as 66 percent faster in crunching JavaScript as today’s Chrome 9. Hardware graphics acceleration is also new and, with a fast enough system, could see as much as 80 percent of the main processor’s work offloaded to a GPU, extending the battery life on notebooks.
Online sync will now also optionally sync saved passwords and can themselves get an encrypted passphrase. Settings have been revamped both to appear in-browser and to let users search for and hop to a settings area by using the Omnibox bar.
The beta is available for Linux, Macs and Windows PCs. Graphics acceleration is already found in Internet Explorer 9 and Safari.
