Right in line with its usual update cycle, Google today released version 29 of its Chrome browser for Mac, Windows, Linux and Chrome Frame. There are no real surprises here, but just like most updates to the stable channel, Chrome 29 does introduce some smaller updates. On the desktop, this means the Omnibox — Chrome’s combined URL and search bar — now also bases its suggestions on the recency of the sites you have visited.
This new Omnibox algorithm, Google says, should result “in more timely and contextually relevant suggestions.”
Another new feature of the desktop version is the ability to reset your browser settings with just a few clicks. As Google notes, this should come in handy when you “got overzealous with fun extensions,” for example. The reset will allow you to keep your bookmarks, themes and apps in place, but it will delete all of your extensions.
With this update, Google is also bringing a number of new APIs to Chrome, many of which it introduced to the beta channel earlier this year.
WebRTC On Android
The most important update in Chrome 29 is actually for Android. Google’s mobile browser now offers support for WebRTC, the increasingly popular format for plug-in-free video and audio chats and data transfer in the browser. With this, mobile WebRTC is now something developers will soon be able to take for granted, which should help the adoption of WebRTC in the short term. To give it a try, Google is hosting its own WebRTC video chat app here.
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