It's been a busy week for Google Chrome - Google today posted Chrome 17 to the stable channel, two days after releasing the first Chrome beta for Android 4.0 tablets and phones. Chrome version 17.0.963.46 patches a number of security holes and adds some small new features and cosmetic tweaks.
Chrome 17 adds a feature called Download Scanning Protection to the browser, which compares downloaded .exes and .msi files to a Google-maintained list and lets the user know if the file has been downloaded from a known malicious site. Users can still click through the warning messages, but it's an extra level of security that may occasionally prevent infection.
The other major innovation is more aggressive Omnibox Prerendering - the browser will begin to load search results and webpages in the background before you finish typing them in an attempt to make page loading seem faster. There are also some new APIs for Extensions and "other small changes," including the fact that the new tab button no longer has a plus sign in it. For a complete list of bug and security fixes, the release notes are linked for your convenience below.
The new version of Chrome is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and most flavors of Linux.
Source: Google
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