First beta of Chrome 6 available

Chrome 6's unified single menu on Mac OS X. Google has launched the first beta version of Chrome 6, the next generation of its web browser. The beta release sees features that were previously only available in the developer version of Chrome, made available for wider use. Enhanced auto-fill is a major new feature in Chrome 6's beta and goes further than most form auto-completion implementations, as it is able to complete credit card numbers.

Google say that the information is "safely stored and is private until a user chooses to share the information with a web site". The credit card information is only saved when explicitly requested. Auto-fill data is synchronised through Google's Chrome synchronisation but, Google says, the credit card information is specifically not included in this process.

Other improvements in the release are a 15% speed improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks which test the performance of the JavaScript engine and a facelift to the browsers user interface which puts all the menu options into a single menu.

(djwm)