Google is preparing to take the beta label off of a product in what must be record time. Google's Marissa Mayer tells TechCrunch's Mike Arrington that the Google Chrome web browser will come out of beta soon, just three months after the product was first released as a public beta. By contrast, Gmail, which was launched more than 4 years ago is still in beta.

So what's behind the move? Does it mean that Google Chrome is a highly polished product that has been extensively tested? Well kind of. But the same is true of Gmail. No, the decision is apparently based on the fact that a number of hardware manufactures would like to preload the web browser on their systems and they don't want to do that with a beta product.

In other words, the change is more about semantics than anything else. Google will continue releasing updates and improvements to Chrome after the first official relase. But you also might find the browser preinstalled on your next computer.

There's still no word on when a version of Google Chrome will be available for Mac or Linux.