You always want Chrome to look great, no matter what device you’re using. Apple recently announced a new laptop with a Retina high-resolution screen, and we’re committed to polishing Chrome until it shines on that machine.

The Chrome Canary channel already shows the early results of this work, bringing basic high-resolution support to Chrome. We have further to go over the next few weeks, but we’re off to the races to make Chrome as beautiful as it can be.

Google has been working on multiple profile support in Chrome since we last mentioned it. The latest Canary and Dev channel releases both have the new features, and it's come a long way, even if its still a little rough around the edges. More »

Netbook users rejoice: Google Chrome's Canary build recently added a new feature that completely hides the URL bar for serious vertical space savings. It's still there, you just have to click on a browser tab (or hit Ctrl+L) and it'll drop down, floating over your webpage. It isn't perfect (as it doesn't allow you to always see the URL you're visiting), but it'll be great on computers for which space is at a premium. This feature's only available in the Windows builds of Canary, and it isn't enabled by default. To enable it, just head to about:flags and toggle "Compact Navigation" on. Restart Canary, right click on the tab bar, then hit "Hide Toolbar" to use the compact version. [via Conceivably Tech] More »

Dear Lifehacker,
I'm a big Chrome user and saw that there's yet another "channel" (Canary) out for us Mac users to try. I've always been a little bit unsure about which one of these I should be running; could you give me some advice? More »

When Google made the decision to introduce an in-tab bookmark manager for Chrome, it only made sense that other personal pages -- like your settings -- would move to tabs as well. A tabbed options page for Chrome began taking shape in July 2010, when we shared a video of the feature working in Chromium. Now, it's become the default in Chrome Canary.

It's just as easy to get around in the tabbed settings page and perhaps a little easier, since the search field allows you to find specific settings instantly -- and we do mean instant. As with Google Instant in the Omnibar, Chrome will load settings which match your input in real time in the righthand pane. The search function will even pull in portions of separate settings pages, which you can see in the screenshot after the break.

With all the Chrome OS and Chrome Web Store hoopla today, a post over at the Chromium blog went mostly unnoticed -- and it's definitely noteworthy. Freshly baked in the Chromium snapshot builds and Google Chrome Canary is Crankshaft, an enhancement to Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine that has yielded some impressive gains.

Crankshaft is made up of four components:

• a runtime profiler for identifying code that uses a significant number of CPU cycles
• a base compiler for generating code more quickly
• an optimizing compiler which re-compiles code pinpointed by the profiler
• deoptimization mechanism that allows Crankshaft to recover from overly-optimistic code optimizations

Crankshaft offers improvements in both startup time and maximum performance, with Google noting gains of up to 12% on JavaScript-heavy pages. On Google's own V8 benchmark, Crankshaft helps Chrome post scores which are almost 50% higher than previous versions with V8 alone.

...And for those of you wondering when Chrome was going to hit version ten, you've got your answer. It's already happened to the Canary build -- so hit your wrench menu > About Google Chrome and restart to update yourself to Chrome X! There's not much new that you'll notice right off the bat, with the exception of a selectable Instant option and experimental geolocation features in about:flags.

The Google Chrome Dev channel received an update yesterday, and while its changelog was a lengthy one, most of the changes were stability fixes and interface polish. There was, however, an interesting note on one of the less significant entries.

Revision 67228 removed some un-needed text from the channel changer in Chrome OS -- which lets you choose to listen for updates to the stable, beta, or dev build. The removed text was Canary, which isn't needed since Chrome Canary currently only runs on Windows.

The revision, however, reads "Remove 'canary' as it's not yet supported as of now." Now, this is just a comment in the Chromium code at the moment -- but it could well indicate that Canary is headed to other OSes. What do you say, Mac and Linux users? Would you install Chrome Canary if it was available for your OS?

Google Chrome extensions can be truly handy, but there's at least one feature power users have been clamoring for since the beginning: the ability to hide an extension's browser action button. Good news, Chrome Geeks: the Canary build now lets you hide extension buttons.

Just right-click the icon you want to disappear and select hide button, and it's gone. If you should happen to get removal remorse, just head to chrome://extensions and you'll find a show button link next to any extension you've previously hidden.

Yes, you could already drag-to-resize the entire browser actions area to hide any buttons which happened to be on the right-hand side -- but now you've got full control over which extensions get space on your toolbar and which don't.

At last, extensions which you can call from the context menu or invoke with a hotkey don't have to chew up valuable toolbar real estate in Google Chrome.

Continue reading Google Chrome adds option to hide any extension's button

If you're like me, you may have tried to force Google Chrome's password into action already. It's been possible to add passwords to sync for quite some time via a command line switch, though I found that Chrome would simply spin its wheels once you tried to log in to your account after adding the switch.

As of this revision on October 21, password sync was officially enabled by default -- though it didn't work for me in Chromium yesterday. Tonight, however, an update was pushed to Chrome Canary (8.0.561.0) and password sync now appears to be fully functional.

Those of you running Canary, head to your wrench menu and check your Personal Stuff tab. You should see passwords listed among the sync data choices -- and it should already be checked if you have everything set to sync.

Firefox added built-in checking for outdated plug-ins a while back, and it was announced back in June that Google Chrome would soon add the feature. After all, surfing with older, unpatched versions of Flash, Java, or QuickTime poses a security risk, and browser security is a vital part of Chrome's core.

Following the update to 7.0.542.0 in Chrome's bleeding-edge Canary build, Windows users can now turn on outdated plug-in checking. To flip the switch, jump to the about:labs page and click the enable link. Unlike some other experimental features, the plug-in check doesn't require a restart.

Right now, the check is only available in Canary -- but this is the kind of feature Google tends to push to Chrome's other channels in short order.

Ever find yourself wishing you could run two versions of Google Chrome -- like the stable version and the dev version -- side-by-side? It's been a tad tricky to do that in the past, but Google has just made things about as easy as they can possibly get -- by introducing another Chrome build.

Yes, Google is offering a Vista-esque four flavors of Chrome now -- with the release of Canary, a pseudo-dev channel build which installs to a different directory (%localappdata%\Google\Chrome SxS\ on Windows). Canary isn't linked to your Google Chrome installs at all, meaning you can also run different sync profiles, themes, and browser preferences.

Apart from the folder change, Googler Huan Ren states that Canary may also receive updates which the dev channel does not. Canary will be the most bleeding-edge official version of Chrome and somewhat of a mix between Chrome dev and the Chromium snapshot builds.

Canary's arrival has a lot to do with the new Chrome release cycle. With stable builds due out every six weeks, beta branching will occur more frequently and "risky" changes from the trunk can now be pushed to Canary prior to landing them on the Dev channel.

This also says a lot about Chrome's early adopters -- there's obviously a crapload of them if Google feels it can support two official, pre-beta builds. Download Google Chrome Canary here and run it in tandem with your current stable, beta, or dev build.

Wait a sec... "Why Canary?", you ask? I'm guessing this is a reference to the old practice of taking a canary down into a mine... If the canary died, it was unsafe and the miners knew to bail out. If a change kills Chrome Canary, they'll block it from the dev build.