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The latest version of the Jolicloud netbook operating system is now available for download.And as expected, it changes the rendering engine for web-based applications from Mozilla to Chrome. One of the things that makes Jolicloud stand out is the fact that you can install either native Linux applications or web-based apps like twitter, Gmail, or Facebook. When you install a web app, a shortcut shows up in your program launcher, and hitting the shortcut brings up a single-purpose web browser that will take you to that application.

Up until today, Jolicloud used Mozilla Prism to achieve this effect. Prism is basically a platform for creating desktop versions of web apps that will launch in a stripped down, Firefox-like browser. The new version of Jolicloud instead uses the Google Chrome browser’s capabilities to do much the same thing. Jolicloud says this should help reduce the amount of memory needed by each application while making apps launch faster.

The default web browser in Jolicloud is still Firefox.

Existing Jolicloud users can upgrade the operating system just by clicking the “update” button.