Chicago (IL) - Historically, moving from a 1.x to 2.0 version suggests a host of new improvements. Sadly in Google's case, their Chrome 1.0 moving to 2.0 is just a marketing trick like the one we saw three months ago when Google removed the BETA label and proclaimed Chrome to be a finished product. On the bright side, however, 2.0 beta does feature a faster Javascript engine that could be reason enough to upgrade. They've also updated the WebKit rendering platform which enables full-page zoom and three other features that will find its audience. The question is: Will this "major" new version, once it comes out of beta, fall on deaf ears?

All along I've been saying Chrome wasn't yet ready for prime time. This past December, when Google simply removed the BETA label from the then current 0.4.154.22 Chrome version, I wrote that it was purely a marketing move designed to increase Chrome's web usage share. Simply put, the resulting 1.0 release was only as stable as the beta was and it brought no new features or improvements to justify removing the beta label. Since then, Google has released several maintenance updates to Chrome, bringing the current stable version to number 1.0.154.48.

While Google publicly acknowledged they've been developing new features for Chrome, we expected the company would simply update the current Chrome version whenever the new release is ready for prime time. Instead, the search giant decided to keep its current version where it is and release a new beta version, giving users the opportunity to test its new features -- so the company could tweak the code. Of course, that's nothing out of ordinary. Other browser vendors also release beta versions of upcoming releases in parallel with current stable versions, often times with a link appearing immediately by the stable download link on their sites.

With Chrome, if you want to install the new beta version, the installer will switch you to Google's beta channel, replacing whatever Chrome version you had installed with the latest beta, which is version 2.0.169.1. Unlike rival browsers, there is no way to keep both versions of the browser install on the system at the same time. And to make matters even more confusing, you can opt for the developer's channel as well, which brings you the least stable Chrome releases that should serve only as test bed for features that may (or may not) end up in ordinary beta releases.

We sincerely hope Google will abandon this awkward and confusing system, opting instead for a more common intuitive approach allowing us to run both stable and beta releases of Chrome on our computers at the same time. With that off our backs, let's take a closer look at new features that Google has in store for Chrome.

Faster V8:  Speed, give me what I need

Google claims that the first thing you might notice about this new beta is its speed improvement. How true! I'd started out by running beta on a low-end netbook and immediately noticed snappier performance. Google says the new beta performs 25 percent faster on Google's V8 benchmark (known to be skewed towards Chrome's V8 engine), and a whopping 35 percent faster on the common Sunspider Javascript benchmark -- compared to its current stable version. In addition, the company claims that the browser is nearly twice as fast as the original beta version.

Time for a reality check.

Pages do seem to load faster while complex web applications are noticeably snappier, especially sites like Gmail and Facebook. On top of that, the user interface appears to be even more responsive than before.

While the overall sense of speed improvement is there, it doesn't feel as fast as Google's tests should indicate. Of course, these benchmarks should always be taken with a grain of salt since they measure only the Javascript engine -- disregarding other engineering tweaks and architectures that contributes to how fast the browser is in everyday use (such as network latency, one factor alone which can make browsers appear extremely slow in some aspects).

Let me put it this way: Speed has always been Chrome's biggest advantage thanks to an entirely new byte-code optimized Javascript engine, dubbed V8. It's a fresh design and modern architecture that isolates tab processes and supports internal memory protection and multitasking. Because of this, the current Chrome version is, in my subjective opinion, the most enjoyable browser for everyday use when it comes to speed -- particularly in web applications and heavy-load scenarios with several dozens of tabs opened at once. With that in mind, any improvements built upon an already speedy engine is surely a welcome addition, and one which further increases the speed gap between Chrome and rivals.

While speed gains in this beta are apparent, they are not huge or groundbreaking and, frankly, don't seem 30% faster than the current stable version.