Google updated its stable browser channel today, pushing Chrome 12 to its widest base of users. Chrome 12 stable (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) doesn't contain any surprises from the Chrome 12 beta that was released a month ago, but it does bring more hardware acceleration support and better browsing security. It also marks the end of public support for Google Gears, the offline Web app tool.

The security improvements are the biggest change in version 12. In addition to 14 security holes getting patched, including five marked high priority, Google has expanded its "Safe Browsing" technology to include malicious file protection. It won't block all malicious file downloads, but it does do a better job of examining your downloads before they reach your hard drive. In the blog post announcing the new Chrome release, Google was careful to address privacy concerns and point out that the enhancements don't track which sites you've been downloading files from.

Another security change adds the user's ability to delete Flash cookies. This makes sense, given that Flash has come baked into Chrome for some time.

The hardware acceleration has less of an immediate impact, although it can be used immediately and really will affect Web browsing down the line as more and more people get computers with powerful graphics cards that the browser can leverage to render content, especially video, faster. In Chrome 12, 3D CSS gets some love, and if you're running Windows Vista or Mac OS X 10.6 or above, you can watch this Chrome Experiment provided by Google, which shows how 3D CSS can be used to rotate the video, change its size, and add a playlist.

Minor changes in Chrome 12 include the ability to launch Web apps from the location bar; giving sync its own settings page, as other options have received over the past few months; improved screen reader support; and for Mac users, a better warning using Command-Q to close the browser. The full changelog can be read here.

Much of the Web world has moved on to CSS 3, but today the World Wide Web Consortium has declared the CSS 2.1 standard for Web page formatting to be done.

In W3C standards lingo, CSS 2.1 has reached "recommendation" stage. Phillipe Le Hegaret, leader of the HTML working at the W3C group, announced the milestone on Twitter today.

Browser makers, even longtime laggard Microsoft, have turned much of their attention to CSS 3, which offers glamorous new features such as animating the transition from one page to another, endowing boxes with rounded corners, and if Adobe gets its way, magazine-style layouts.

Completing the CSS 2.1 standard still is important, though, given that such technology has a shelf life potentially decades long and that an ever-wider audience of organizations must deal with Web publishing.

"This publication crowns a long effort to achieve very broad interoperability," said Bert Bos, co-inventor of CSS and co-editor of CSS 2.1, in a statement.

The recommendation stage brings some intellectual-property reassurance, too, in that the standards makers agree that using it won't incur patent infringement suits.

And don't discount the fact that the CSS Working Group will have a bit more spare time for CSS3. "Now we can turn our attention to the cool features we've been itching to bring to the Web," Bos said.

That's important, given its central role alongside HTML and JavaScript--not just in Web pages and Web apps, but in the coming Windows 8 "tailored apps" as well.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Apple has released iTunes 10.3 (Download for Mac or Windows), which includes initial support for Apple's new iCloud features.

Officially unveiled at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday, iCloud is the company's upcoming replacement for MobileMe. While iCloud in its entirety will be available later this year, parts of it are being enabled sooner, including managing currently purchased items on multiple machines as well as previous purchases from the iTunes store.

The new release of iTunes comes with Automatic Download, a feature that ensures that all devices you have running iTunes are updated with music, apps, and books that you purchase, so an item purchased on one Mac will be downloaded on your other Macs running iTunes 10.3.

Ultimately users will have to wait for iTunes 10.5 and OS X 10.7 Lion to fully implement all iCloud features, but for now this will be a convenient introduction. iTunes 10.3 is available for download either at Apple's iTunes, through Software Update, or from the Apple Support Downloads pages (see below), and will be about 75MB in size depending on the version.

• iTunes 10.3

• iTunes 10.3 for Windows (64-bit)

In addition to automatic downloads, the update includes options to download previously purchased items at no cost (though Apple warns that if previous purchases are no longer in the store then they will not be available).

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Originally posted at MacFixIt

Armed with some strong test results and new features, ZoneAlarm's latest consumer security suite revamp released today is a solid effort to attract new users and retain older fans. Available exclusively from CNET Download.com today, ZoneAlarm has updated its four main consumer options for download: ZoneAlarm Extreme Security, ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, ZoneAlarm AntiVirus + Firewall, and ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall to feature a new unified look, more-effective threat scans, and some interesting value-added features for users who don't mind paying more to get ancillary security features.

The interface is the most apparent change to the suites, ditching a layout that was based on multiple workflows to reach a single feature and an eye-straining font size for something that looks more generic but is also more accessible. The new interface opens to a blue-and-gray window split into three large sections in the Extreme Security suite, revealing your security statuses for your Computer, Internet, and Identity. Click one to drill deeper into your settings, or to fix problems. In the lower-end versions of ZoneAlarm, there are simply fewer options.

ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall, of course, is a souped-up version of ZoneAlarm's free firewall, so it doesn't offer any antivirus protections. The core detection engine is new and identical across the three versions that do have antivirus protection. CheckPoint, the publisher of ZoneAlarm, licenses its antivirus engine from Kaspersky but says it offers better protection than the Russian security vendor does on its own. "We've tied it to the ZoneAlarm cloud, which we've been actively using since 2003," said John Gable, director of product marketing for CheckPoint.

For some, that's a hard argument to take, although if you love the ZoneAlarm firewall, it may make more sense now to invest in the ZoneAlarm antivirus protection that it comes from such a well-renowned pedigree. One of the major differences that CheckPoint built on top of the Kaspersky engine is how the suite handles what Gable called "security events." "ZoneAlarm will allow you to easily roll back changes in case it's a false positive," said Gable. Also new this year, ZoneAlarm now runs a prescan during the installation process to clean the machine before the install takes effect.

Other changes appear in the value-added features. For one thing, all users who buy a license to a 2012 ZoneAlarm product get a license to its new parental control Facebook program SocialGuard for free. SocialGuard doesn't come with the security suites as a mandatory install; instead, you can download it only if you want to use it. Also on the parental control front, more-traditional parental controls come baked into ZoneAlarm Internet Security and Extreme Security, licensed from NetNanny.

Another value-added feature shows up only in the Extreme Security version. It comes with the CheckPoint product DataLock, originally released in March 2010. DataLock works like TrueCrypt to encrypt your entire hard drive. One of its biggest differences from that open-source freeware is that it comes with an optional 24-7 password recovery service. Without it, forgetting the password would render the hard drive inaccessible.

If you purchase a less-robust version of ZoneAlarm, you can upgrade easily by clicking on one of the grayed-out features. That will take you to a Web page explaining the feature, with an additional link to upgrade.

A three-computer license for ZoneAlarm Extreme Security retails for $79.95, with a 30-day trial. ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite retails for $10 cheaper at $69.95, and ZoneAlarm Antivirus+Firewall and ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall are priced the same at $59.95, even though one comes with antivirus protection and the other doesn't.