In fact, the gains it's making appear to be custom-made for XP. If Google is optimizing Chrome 3, it's clearly not for Windows 7. This while the latest Chrome 3 build actually lost performance in the Windows 7 Release Candidate. That gain alone is the equivalent of swallowing an extra 57% of the performance of Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista SP2, in just one week's time. In Betanews tests conducted yesterday, Chrome 3.0.193.1 had gained more than half a point in our performance index over the 3.0.192.1 build we tested just last week, on our physical Windows XP SP3 platform, with a record index score of 18.58. Google may want to demonstrate its presence on netbooks early, and it might be able to do that by producing the best performing Web browser for netbooks in the interim. But why would Google want to optimize its browser for Windows XP? The reason could lie with netbooks, the arena that Google seeks to invade with its own operating system, perhaps as soon as next year.