Google has announced the release of Chrome 34, the latest stable update to its popular web browser for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
While the changes it touts are not the most exciting they continue to hone the fast, safe and stable browsing experience Chrome is famed for.
Responsive Images
The headline feature of Chrome 34 is support for responsive images through the “srcset” image tag attribute. This change enables web developers to provide multiple versions of an image, each designed to suit the size and type of device it is being viewed on, whether that’s a desktop, tablet or even a TV.
For example, a different image can be shown on a desktop than a HiDPI tablet that would be better served by a higher-res version. At the very least responsive image support will allow for faster page loading times and less bandwidth waste than other popular responsive image libraries that replace lower-res images with higher-res versions after loading.
Other changes included in Chrome 34:
- Supervised User importing
- Un-prefixed web audio (web standard)
- New extension and app APIs for developers
- Improvements to Windows 8 ‘Metro’ Mode
- Flash Player updated to v13.0.0.182
There is also the usual barrage stability and performance enhancements rocking out under the hood, plus 31 key security fixes, including several contributed by external researchers as part of the search giant’s ‘rewards’ programme.
Download Chrome
Call me a genius, but you’re already running Chrome, right? Who’d have guessed! No worries if you’re not. You can grab the latest release for the three main desktop operating systems, including the recently retired Windows XP, from Google at the website linked below.