For those who haven’t heard, Google released a new web browser for public beta testing this week. This browser is built around the webkit open source rendering engine, and it incorporates Google’s new JavaScript engine, V8, a new memory management model and a sleek, simple UI.

Chrome’s new JavaScript engine has showcased large performance improvements in early benchmarks, easily topping both Firefox’s and Internet Explorer’s JavaScript performance numbers. The JavaScript engine was built from scratch and actually compiles the JavaScript instead of interpreting the code on the fly, which is the current model used by all browsers. This difference has allowed Google to see large performance improvements.

The new memory management model is also very innovative: instead of treating the entire web browser as one application, Chrome actually views each tab within the browser as a new process. This allows the user to view multiple websites at once, without each website affecting the performance of the other. No longer will your entire browser crash when one website is behaving incorrectly.

Click here to learn more about Google Chrome.