Google is adding one of its search features to Chrome, marking the first time the search giant is using a proprietary component for the web browser. Known as Instant Pages, the feature is available in the beta version of Chrome 13 that was released on Thursday.
Using this feature, the top web page in search results is pre-rendered in the background and entirely loaded before the user even decides to click on it. Chrome was actually not the first to showcase this faster than fast page loading; the social web browser Rockmelt, based on Google’s open-source Chromium project, also preloads search results. The people behind Rockmelt reasoned that Internet speed and processor power are good enough to benefit from. Google may be thinking the same thing too.
It seems Instant Pages is not widely available, as Michael Muchmore of PCMag found out during his testing. As for underlying security issues resulting from preloaded malicious web pages, Google believes no further risk will affect users.
Google Instant Pages is not the only thing aficionados can try out in Chrome 13 beta. The option to preview pages before printing, a feature widely implemented in other browsers for years, is finally available. Chrome 13 does the trick by way of its built-in PDF viewer and also lets you save web pages as PDF files using Print to PDF option.
