Google drops Chrome Beta release with pre-rendered pages and security enhancements

Google announced on the Chrome Blog today that the latest Chrome Beta release rolled out with a number of new improvements to speed and security. When it comes to speed, the beta release of Chrome will now pre-render pages you visit most often. When typing a URL into the omnibox, URLs that auto-complete will now also start loading before you hit enter.

To get you where you want to go even faster, Chrome will now start loading some web pages in the background, even before you’ve finished typing the URL in the omnibox. If the URL auto-completes to a site you’re very likely to visit, Chrome will begin to prerender the page. Prerendering reduces the time between when you hit Enter and when you see your fully-loaded web page–in some cases, the web page appears instantly.

The release also includes a number of security improvements including updates to Chrome’s Safe Browsing feature that allows executable files, including “.exe” and “.msi”, files to be scanned after downloading. If the file is found to be malicious, Chrome will warn the user to delete it. Google further explained the matter below:

If a file you download is known to be bad, or is hosted on a website that hosts a relatively high percentage of malicious downloads, Chrome will warn you that the file appears to be malicious and that you should discard it. We’re starting small with this initial Beta release, but we’ll be ramping up coverage for more and more malicious files in the coming months.