Download Dispatch

If you were looking for something besides Chrome news last week, you probably had to do a bit of digging. The popular Google browser dominated the Windows software space with a bevy of announcements. For one, version 8 will offer PDF file viewing directly within the browser window. That's right: that means no separate launching of Adobe's Reader app. Pretty nice, if you ask us.

Chrome also saw the arrival of a fast-encryption feature. The feature, dubbed False Start, is available in the latest version of the browser and serves to speed up secure communications. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these bits of info coincided with reports that Chrome continues to attract significant new browser usage.

Though it was perhaps overshadowed by Google, Mozilla had some news of its own. Jetpack, the revamped foundation for add-ons that customize Firefox, could arrive in its first beta form Monday.

And on the security front, Ad-Aware received a hefty change to how it protects you in its third update of the year. Lavasoft's Ad-Aware 9 Free debuted two new detection engines as the company fights to keep its well-known freeware competitive.