Google Releases Chrome 18 Beta with improved GPU performances and PDF plugin

Google has just updated Chrome Beta to version 18 after Chrome 17 gone final yesterday. Its headline new feature is improved 2D graphics performance in HTML5 and a software rasterizer to enable older machines to display content rendered using newer unsupported technologies (by these old Machines) such as WebGL.

Chrome 18 Beta also sees improvements to the PDF plug-in and Printing, plus fixes a number of issues such as full-screen performance under Windows and startup issues in Red Hat Enterprise 6.

Most Windows and Mac users should start to see major performance improvements from certain web apps and websites thanks to support for GPU-accelerated rendering for 2D Canvas content. Because of the wide variety of hardware configurations out there, the Chromium development team has taken a conservative approach to this new technology, enabling just a few features and keen to hear feedback from anyone who encounters performance issues as a result of the tweaks. To see what new features are supported by your system, type chrome://gpu/ into the URL bar.

Download Chrome 18 Beta