Shaping up samples for browser battles (AFP)

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Google on Friday released a version of chrome as revved rivals Microsoft and Mozilla strengthened their samples to the arena of competitive Internet navigation software.

In line with the arrival of the lunar year of the rabbit, Google product manager Jeff Chang and Li Chan promoted the latest trial version of Chrome "as quick as a Bunny."

The latest version of chrome came a week after Microsoft has deployed an Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) release candidate Featuring improvements in speed, security, privacy and Web site graphics functionality.

IE9 has been downloaded over two million times as of Friday, according to Ryan Gavin, senior director of the IE team.

"We are particularly happy to see the number of partners and developers embracing and exploiting the IE9 performance capabilities," Gavin said in a blog post.

Mozilla last week released a test version of its Firefox web browser with 4 improvements that included a people of "Do not track" feature may use to report Web sites that do not want their online activities.

"We have continued our work to improve the performance and stability, while also implementing a privacy feature ' Do not Track ' to provide more control over online behavioral tracking," said Mozilla.

Firefox debuted in 2004 as an open source browser, innovative individuals predisposed released as an option for Internet Explorer.

Google released last month extension of the software for its Chrome browser that allows users to opt-out of being tracked by a growing collection of companies adopting privacy industry regarding online advertising.

"Keep My Opt-out" allows users to choose not to have code snippets, called "cookies" are installed on your computer to monitor your online conduct for the purpose of targeting ads.

Microsoft "Security Tracking" was built in IE9, but users must be savvy enough to enable the feature and create lists of third-party Web sites that do not want to track their behavior.

Internet Explorer is the most popular Web browser in the United States followed by Firefox, Chrome and Apple Safari.