In a move which brings along a number of minor improvements to Google’s Chrome web browser, the Internet search giant has recently released its Chrome version 17, which boasts a new feature that allows web address preloading, as well as notably better protection against malicious downloads.

The “preemptive rendering” feature that Google has brought aboard the Chrome version 17 automatically commences the loading and rendering of a page in the background, while the address is being typed by the users in the omnibox, which is the combined address and search text entry field in the navigation toolbar of the browser.

The web address preloading in Chrome version 17 will occur only in case the top match, which the omnibox's autocompletion functionality generates, happens to be a site which is frequently visited by the user.

Since the hitting of the ‘enter’ key by the user and the confirmation of the autocompletion result leads to an instant display of the prerendered page, the web address preloading feature essentially extends Chrome's already-available predictive page loading functionality to autocompletion results.

In addition to this feature, the Chrome version 17 also brings on some new security functionality to Chrome; with each file download by the user prompting the browser to compare the file against a whitelist of known-good files and publishers; and deliver a warning to the user if the file is malicious and is deemed a potential risk.