Google Releases Chrome 14; Introduces Native Client & Web Audio API

Google updated its Chrome Web browser late last week, pushing the version to 14.0. With it comes an improved UI for Mac OS X Lion, the first usable version of ‘Native Client’ (NaCl), a Web audio API set to give developers some creative freedom with audio effects, along with the usual onslaught of bug fixes. If you’re a Chrome user, you’re likely already running 14.0, but you can find out for sure by looking at the ‘About Google Chrome’ option in the menu.

The Native Client is of most interest with this release, as it will allow developers to offer applications that run right inside of Chrome, in native C or C++. The programs could be small like extensions, or full-blown productivity apps or even games. Because Native Client acts as a sandbox, all code should remain confined within its tab, so no rogue or buggy program should affect the other tabs, or crash the entire browser.

Native Client is a feature that’s been met with skepticism, especially by other browser vendors. Mozilla’s Chris Blizzard doesn’t believe that Google’s solution fixes the problems it sets out to fix, stating, “Once you download the native code, there’s no opportunity for browser optimization. There’s no opportunity for all kinds of things.“, going on to further state, “With Native Client, all of that disappears. The fast innovation we’ve seen on the web disappears.“

Google’s goal of Native Client is to allow applications to run from within Chrome without having to launch it as a separate OS process. The feature is meant to be cross-platform, but as Mozilla and Opera are more interested in technologies such as HTML5 being the future, it’s hard to fathom whether Native Client will be used in any real way.

It is important to note that because of the goals Google has with its Chrome OS, it makes perfect sense that Native Client exists. Rather than have a laptop remain confined to Web technologies, Native Client would allow users to run actual OS applications, and across multiple platforms, right from within their browser.

While Native Client has been in the works for a couple of years, we really won’t know of its potential for the next little while. With 14.0, Google itself has launched some proof-of-concept applications, including ScummVM (emulates two old DOS game titles), Nethack and Colossal Cave Adventure. At this time, these appear to be the only Native Client applications found on Google’s Chrome Web store. You can read more about Native Client here.

As mentioned before, Chrome 14.0 also introduces a Web audio API that will allow developers to make use of special sound effects, useful for games or in-browser applications. For OS X Lion, native OS scroll bars have been introduced along with the initial implementation of full-screen mode (where the browser takes up the entire screen).