I wish they had Google Canary for Linux. Right now, you can only pick a single channel for chrome (Stable, Beta, or Development). There really is no side by side chrome running. You can use chromium but it really is not the same thing (as it is usually a few versions behind chrome stable and lacks a few features).
It actually just downloads and unpacks the latest version and keeps a backup of the previous release, but I found it quite handy. Be sure to adjust the path, though, if you want to use it.
