Even though Chrome is no longer in beta, it's still only available for PCs running Windows . But Google is reporting some major improvements in its first stable release and some ambitious goals for increasing market share.

According to Google, the company has improved JavaScript performance by more than 150 percent since the first beta of Google Chrome, and by more than 25 percent since the most recent stable release.

With Chrome 3.0, Google aims to grab five percent market share by 2010 and 10 percent by 2011. The company has just more than two percent market share today. Google's gains may come primarily at the expense of Microsoft 's Internet Explorer unless it launches Chrome versions for Linux and Mac OS X.

Exploring Google Chrome 3.0

Chrome 3.0 is set to compete with a New Tab page that facilitates one-click browsing. Google said it redesigned the tab page so it's customizable. For example, with Chrome 3.0, users can rearrange thumbnails of most-visited Web sites by clicking and dragging the mouse. Users can also pin thumbnails to a spot so they don't disappear even if browsing habits change.

"You can do even more to customize your New Tab page -- for example, you can hide parts of the page you don't want to see, or even opt for a simple list view of all your most visited Web sites. In addition, we've added handy tips to the bottom of the New Tab page to help you get the most out of Google Chrome," said Chrome program manager Anthony Laforge.

Chrome 3.0 also boasts improvements to the Omnibox. Omnibox serves as a search bar and a Web address bar. Chrome 3.0 optimizes the presentation of the drop-down menu and adds icons that aim to help the user distinguish between suggested sites, searches, bookmarks and sites from the browsing history.

Chrome 3.0 offers HTML5 capabilities. A video-tagging feature promises to make embedding videos in a page as simple as embedding regular images. The video tag also allows video playback without a plug-in. Finally, Google officially christened Themes, which allows users to dress up a browser with colors, patterns and images. (continued...)

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