Google's latest Beta release of the Chrome browser offers improvements in speed and security. The new Chrome browser will now start loading some web pages in the background, even before you've finished typing the URL in the omnibox. If the URL auto-completes to a site you're very likely to visit, Chrome will begin to prerender the page. Prerendering reduces the time between when you hit Enter and when you see your fully-loaded web page--in some cases, the web page appears instantly.

On the security front, improvements to Chrome's Safe Browsing technology should help protect you from additional types of malware attacks. Previously, Chrome focused primarily on protecting you from sites that would exploit your computer with no user interaction required. Now, there is an increase in malicious websites that try to convince you to download and run a file that will harm your computer. Some websites even pretend this malicious file is a free anti-virus product.

Chrome now includes expanded functionality to analyze executable files (such as ".exe" and ".msi" files) that you download. If a file you download is known to be bad, or is hosted on a website that hosts a relatively high percentage of malicious downloads, Chrome will warn you that the file appears to be malicious and that you should discard it. Google is starting small with this initial Beta release, but the company will be ramping up coverage for more and more malicious files in the coming months.

Try out these changes in the new Chrome Beta (17.0.963.26).