Google has officially released the Chrome Beta Channel for Android smartphones and tablets. And while that may sound a little fancier than what it needs to be, putting is simpler — Android users can now download and install a beta version of the Chrome browser. Similar to the stable Chrome app for Android, the Chrome beta app comes with the requirement of Android 4.0 or later.
That being said, this Chrome Beta app does come with some perks in that you will be first to see new features. But at the same time, given the beta tag, you may also experience some issues and/or quirks from time to time. As Google notes, using the Chrome Beta app will allow you to preview the latest features and also be able to provide some feedback.
The good news here, you will be able to install the Chrome Beta app alongside the regular Chrome Android app. The most recent Chrome Beta release is sitting at version 25.0.1364.8 and can be found in the Google Play Store — just search for, download and install the app called Chrome Beta. Or alternatively, follow this link for a direct path.
All said and done, and for those who are on the fence about why you would want to run the beta release as opposed to the stable release. Well, Google noted that with this release they have improved the Octane performance benchmark on average by 25-30 percent. And on top of that, this release comes with “interesting” HTML5 features for developers such as CSS Filters.
[via Google Chrome Blog]
Any idea if Chrome Beta allows apps, like Read Later?
No, it does not as far as I can tell. It’s not really that different from Chrome for Android. The one perk I have noticed, at least for me, is that it is a lot faster.
You can use the Pocket app and share the page to the app instead of using the extension like you would on the desktop.
I was under the impression that Chrome was still under beta
….bazinga
Stop saying “that being said”