Chrome 42 Beta (Photo : thenextweb.com)
A week after the release of Chrome 41 stable version, Google is now releasing Chrome 42 beta for Android, Linux, Mac, and Windows. While this newest version arrived Monday, the company has offered a detailed information on its features such as ES6 Classes and push notifications, Thursday, the Chromium reported.
With the arrival of these versions, Chrome is made much more than just a plain browser by millions of users; it has become a major consideration of most web developers, the Venture Beat pointed out.
Chrome 42 beta has two new APIs, the Notifications API and the Push API, which together allow hundreds of sites to push notifications to its users even after it has closed. This might sound intrusive to many, but the mother company Google says the users still have to grant explicit permission to make this possible.
Once the permission is made, a developer could now make use of the Google Cloud Messaging and remotely wake-up the particular service worker; thereby run the JavaScript. With this comes Google's requirement of manifesting a user-visible notice, which includes a "site settings" button for users to disable the notifications easily and quickly.
Aside from the introduction of Chrome 32's ability to allow Android users to incorporate screen shortcuts into their favorite websites through a personalized menu item, Chrome 42 beta upgrades the feature through providing a banner. Users who are frequenting a high-quality web app will be automatically asked if they would want to save the site in their home screen.
Google releases Chrome's new versions every six weeks; hence, the stable version of Chrome 42, which is the last version to support Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, to arrive by April.
