Clearly Google values speedy page loads. It also has been tinkering with instant rendering for some time, and in various guises.

The search engine has focused on these two concepts in its new beta version of Chrome.

Prerender Technology

Chrome will now start loading some web pages in the background, even before the user has finished typing the URL in the omnibox, it says in its blog post announcing the beta. If the URL auto-completes to a site the user is likely to visit, Chrome will begin to prerender the page. Prerendering reduces the time between hitting Enter and when the fully-loaded web page appears—which in some cases, can be instantly.

Chrome Gaining Browser Market Share

Google is updating Chrome as the browser is making significant inroads in the market.

Google Chrome held 18.7% share of the US browser market in December 2011, representing a 50% increase from 12.4% a year earlier, and challenging Firefox, which dropped to 20.1% share from 26.9%, for the second rank, according to StatCounter.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remained the top browser with 48.3% market share in December 2011, unchanged from a year earlier. Rounding out the top 5 were Safari (11.5%) and Opera (0.5%).

Chrome Overtakes Firefox Worldwide

When examining the data on a global basis, StatCounter finds that Chrome surpassed Firefox for the second rank in November 2011, ending the year with 27.3% of the global market share, ahead of Firefox’s 25.3%. In December 2010, Chrome accounted for just 14.8% share, less than half that of Firefox (30.8%).