Google’s Chrome browser has only officially been available for Linux and Mac users since early June. Since then, Google has updated the browser once, keeping it at the same version number for Windows, Linux and Mac. That is now changing with the 3.0.190.x release for the dev-channel version of Chrome.
For this release, Google actually has three seperate numbers for each platform. The Mac is version 3.0.190.0, Windows is 3.0.190.1 and Linux is 3.0.190.2.
In my opinion, this new numbering is an obvious step as each platform is a little different. Looking over the release notes for the release, it’s clear that a large part of the 3.0.190.x release is about bug fixes for Linux and Mac versions.
Among the issues fixed on Linux is the ability to import and export bookmarks. I know, seems simple enough, but remember the first Chrome for Linux release was barely stable loaded down with bugs.
For Mac users there are incremental bug fixes too including one that will now enable Mac users to download more than one item in a tab.
Beyond just bug fixes, Google is aggressively updating its V8 JavaScript engine in all version of Chrome too.
The release notes actually indicate not one but two version upgrades for V8 in the 3.0.190.x release cycle (versions 1.2.8.1 and V8 1.2.8.2).
It’s important to remember that on Linux and Mac, Chrome is still just a dev-channel release and has not yet migrated to the stable-channel. Google has three development streams for Chrome: dev, beta and stable — so it could be another few weeks by count until we see a stable release for Mac and Linux.
