Google Chrome 3.0.196.2 is now out, but trying to figure out what’s new in it is more difficult that previous releases. Up until version 3.0.195.1 Google provided release notes for most Chrome updates – that’s not the case with the 3.0.196.x series (yet).
Instead Google points users to the build notes, which actually provide more specific detail than the release notes – but do not provide the total macro-view summary. I don’t know why Google didn’t put out release notes, but one thing is for sure, they have been busy.
The volume of changes on all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux) is large, with the Extensions system getting a whole lot of attention.
One thing that isn’t in the build notes – but will likely show up there soon – is a new feature for Browser synchronization.
“A bunch of us have been working on a feature to sync user data in Chromium with a Google account. (Surprise! :)) ,” Google developers wrote in a mailing list posting. “The great news is that we’ll be starting to work directly in the Chromium project this week.”
Basically what it means is using Google as a cloud based back-end for user data synchronization – think something like delicious or better yet Mozilla Weave. The plan is for the whole sync effort to be open source using the open protbuf format.
That’s a really big deal – especially considering that Chrome as the browser is the underlying layer of the future Chrome OS.
It means that Chrome OS will have built in Google cloud sync capabilities for data. That means you could probably just use a Chrome OS netbook as a conduit to your data, with that ability to sync multiple machines – which could be useful for work/home environment or for disaster recovery.
