Overhauled JavaScript Engine, One-Letter Loads for Google Chrome Browser

Might have to start using Chrome again. We’ve been using RockMelt, basically Chrome with some Firefox flourishes, recently for its Facebook integration, but it looks like Chrome is worth another shot.

Google (News - Alert) has previewed some features for its Chrome browser, accordingto PC Magazine, “including Google Instant in the omnibox, pages that load after typing only one letter, and an overhauled JavaScript engine.”

In the last six months, according to PC Mag, the number of Chrome users has grown from 70 million to 120 million. Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google, speaking at press event in San Francisco, “attributed this growth to Chrome's speed, and Google today showed off new features intended to boost that speed even more.”

It is fast, we’ll give it that. It’s one reason we switched to Chrome from Firefox. Plus we love being able to write search terms in the URL space. RockMelt lets you do that too.

One upcoming addition, PC Mag said, is Google Instant in “the omnibox -- the URL space in Chrome that also doubles as a search box. Like Google Instant in search, adding the feature to the omnibox will display results as the user types.”

Brian Rakowski, Google's director of product management, showed off a feature, which PC Mag said “will direct users to a site just by typing in the first letter of the URL. If you visit ESPN (News - Alert).com a lot, just typing ‘E’ into the omnibox will automatically load ESPN.com.”

We wouldn’t like that. It’s fine for it to suggest ESPN.com, but to automatically load would be obnoxious. We’re more excited by the fact that, as PC Mag said, “Rakowski also showed off an extremely fast PDF loader; pulling up the 1,990-page healthcare reform bill instantly.”