Finally, after a long journey of waiting, releases and looking jealously at all those Windows users, it's here. Google released Chrome 5 for all three major platforms, delivering their promise to support both Mac and Linux as well.

Not only is this the first cross-platform release for Google, but it's also a new major release by itself. One of the new features is actually an extension of the bookmarks sync functionality. In Chrome 5 it's now possible to sync settings. It's also possible to configure extensions to work in Incognito-mode (by default everything is off). Suffice to say that extensions work cross-platform as they are build using the latest web technologies on top of Chrome's public API. Talking about the web, Chrome 5 includes several HTML5 additions, such as: Geolocation APIs, App Cache, Web Sockets, and file drag-and-drop (as demoed at the Google I/O with Gmail). Other features include a revamped bookmark manager (feels more like Opera now, as it works in a tab) as well as a currently disabled integrated Flash Player. Yes, Flash, disabled. In the near future when Flash Player 10.1 is done it will be enabled. The integrated Flash has a big advantage, as it is automatically updated by Chrome itself, instead of manual labour.

You can download this cutting edge web browser from Google from the official Chrome site. It also contains some videos to convince you of its unique features (such as its multi-process architecture and superb rendering speed).