gHacks technology news » Google Chrome

Google Chrome OS: First looks, first impressions

Jack Wallen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:13:42 +0000

The very early stages of the REAL Google Chrome operating system has been released (and done so fully open sourced). It’s not an operating system you can (and should) be putting on a stand alone machine. Actually what has been released are VirtualBox and VMware images that can be booted in their respective virtual machines.

Martin has posted his concerns about Chrome OS in his insightful “Google Chrome OS: My concerns“. I am in full accord with Martins’ take on cloud computing. But instead of discussing my feelings on the cloud or why we need another OS, I thought it would be beneficial to take a look at a running instance of the Google Chrome OS. I will preface this by saying the OS is in the very early stages of development. But even with the early stages it is quite obvious where this fledgling operating system is heading.

Getting and “installing”

In case you are interested in trying Chrome OS out you can with the help of either VirtualBox or VMware. Since we’ve covered VirtualBox here on Ghacks (read my article “Install VirtualBox with USB Support” to learn how to install VirtualBox) I will show you how to get Chrome running with that application.

After you have VirtualBox up and running you will need to download an image file to use. I have tried both the Chrome OS VirtualBox image and the VMware image on VirtualBox. The results of the VirtualBox image was a black screen that wouldn’t boot. The VMware image, however, was able to successfully boot. So it is my recommendation that you hop over to the Google Chrome page on Gdgt and download the VMware image. You will have to register on the site in order to get to the downloads page.

The download is just over 300 MB and will come in zip form. After you unzip the file you will have a vmdk file ready to use. What you will need to do is move that file to your VirtualBox hard disk directory with the command:

mv *vmdk ~/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/

When that file is properly located you can then create a new virtual machine using that image as your hard disk.

What you get

Figure 1

When Chrome OS boots (and it does so fairly quickly) you will be at a login prompt. It shouldn’t surprise you to find out the login/password is your GMail username/password credentials. As you can see, in Figure 1, your Google Chrome OS experience will very closely resemble the experience you have in Google Chrome – the browser.

But what else can you do? So far not much. I have read about application panels, but it seems as if you have to have a google.com login to experience them. I am, sadly enough, only the holder of a gmail.com login so I can not witness, first hand, some of the other features of the OS. Without having that login there is so little to the OS, in its current state, that it seems nothing more than a web browser running without an apparent operating system (which I believe is the point).

One of the few features of the OS I have managed to find is the ability to pin a page to a tab. What this effectively does is allow you to create a tab dedicated to a page (or Google application). For example: If you use Calendar, Mail, and Documents frequently you could pin each of these tools to their own tabs so that, in order to use a tool, you only have to click that that tools’ tab.

It should be pretty obvious what the intention of the Google Chrome OS is – a foolproof, web-based, single minded operating system who’s experience will only be as good as the applications available to it. This type of operating system seems as if it wants to take the metaphor of the mobile OS and put it square in the middle of your desktop. But with the way the web experience is growing vs. the computing habits of the average user – it makes perfect sense. You have a stripped down OS that can do everything you need to do without having anything on the periphery to confuse or confound the user.

“Features”

Figure 2

After playing around with the OS I have found a few features in place that are usable. You can add a compact navigation bar (see Figure 2). By default this bar (text area to the left in Figure 2) is not there. You have to click on the Options menu and select “Compact Nav Bar” for this to appear. But where is the Options menu? Take a look in Figure 2. The downward-pointing arrow in the far right corner is clicked in order to reveal the Options. You will be surprised to see that this menu is very similar to the Google Chrome Options menu.

As I mentioned earlier, you can pin a page to a tab. Say you use Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Documents frequently. Instead of creating bookmarks for these pages, all you need to do is open that page up, right click the tab, and select Pin Tab. This will create a tab for that page (or App if you will). Now, as Google Chrome OS is very much in the early stages, these pinned tabs will disappear upon reboot.

Final thoughts

It’s only a start, but the Google Chrome OS has all of the underpinnings of something that could have remarkable impact on a very specific application. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest using this early release, but when it hits beta, it will certainly be worth a try.

Tags: Chrome, Google, google os, Operating Systems

Google Tries To Make The Internet Faster With SPDY

Martin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:47:55 +0000

Why is the Internet so damn slow. That’s probably a phrase that every Internet user in the world has said more than once. Even users with fast broadband connections experience slow downs and slow loading websites every now and then as the speed to display a website in the user’s web browser does not only depend on the download speed of the Internet connection. Other factors, including the website that is accessed, the web server the website is hosted, the location of the server in the world and the web browser and system of the user play a role.

Google two days ago made an announcement over at the Chromium Blog where they showcased part of their vision to make the process faster, their answer: SPDY, “an application-layer protocol for transporting content over the web”.

SPDY is “designed specifically for minimizing latency through features such as multiplexed streams, request prioritization and HTTP header compression”. Initial tests in a “lab-environment” have shown speed increases of up to 55% over standard connections while downloading pages from the top 25 websites.

The SPDY project defines and implements an application-layer protocol for the web which greatly reduces latency. The high-level goals for SPDY are:

To target a 50% reduction in page load time. Our preliminary results have come close to this target (see below).

To minimize deployment complexity. SPDY uses TCP as the underlying transport layer, so requires no changes to existing networking infrastructure.

To avoid the need for any changes to content by website authors. The only changes required to support SPDY are in the client user agent and web server applications.

To bring together like-minded parties interested in exploring protocols as a way of solving the latency problem. We hope to develop this new protocol in partnership with the open-source community and industry specialists.

A whitepaper goes into further detail. Users who are interested in the project should start there and follow the discussion over at the Chromium blog.

Tags: chromium, Google, google research, spdy

Google Chrome To Get Automatic Userscript Support

Martin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:23:24 +0000

Until now userscript support in the Google Chrome web browser was severely limited by the fact that the user had to copy the userscripts into a folder of the Chrome profile. Recent versions of the Chromium browser outline what users of the Google Chrome dev releases are soon going to experience as well. Google apparently has added better support for userscripts into the web browser which now can be installed by right within the browser. This could remind many Google Chrome users of the extension support in the web browser which was also initially mediocre but turned out to be in recent released to be one of the best for all web browsers.

Chromium users who want to install a userscript simply visit the website where the userscript is offered, e.g. userscripts.org, and click on the install link offered there.

The process after clicking on the link is similar to the process of installing extensions in the Google browser. It begins with a warning at the bottom of the screen that explains that extensions can be dangerous. It gives the user the choice to continue or discard. The installation dialog will appear if the user selects the continue option. Here it is again possible to install the extension or to cancel the process.

Installed userscripts will appear in the extensions manager of the web browser from where they can be disabled, uninstalled or reloaded.

Support for this new userscript behavior is only provided in the latest Chromium builds with the promise that it will soon be added to the Google Chrome web browser as well. The only thing left do to for the Google Chrome developers is to release a public version of the web browser with this new feature set (extensions and userscripts) enabled.

Tags: chromium, extensions, google browser, google chrome, google chrome extensions, google chrome userscripts, userscripts

Google Chrome 4 Gets Bookmark Syncing

Martin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:43:38 +0000

The latest developer versions of the Google Chrome browser come with the build in option to synchronize bookmarks across multiple computer systems by utilizing a Google account to store the data. Google Chrome dev build users might already know the feature from previous developer builds where it had to be enabled by launching the Google browser with the –enable-sync parameter to enable the menu item and the feature.

The rest of the functionality remained the same. The bookmarks will still be stored in Google Docs and not in Google Bookmarks, apparently because of the way bookmarks are stored in the web browser. The latest builds of the Google browser, for example 4.0.223.11 and above, offer bookmark syncing between multiple computer systems running Google Chrome out of the box.

The new Synchronize my bookmarks option is located in the Tools menu of the browser.

A click on the Synchronize my bookmarks link will display a small popup window displaying a Google Account form.

Enter your credentials and the sync process should start immediately. You’ll be able to access your bookmarks in a weird location: a read-only folder in Google Docs (things will look less weird when Google Docs is transformed into Google Drive, a general-purpose online storage service). Install Google Chrome’s dev build on a different computer and you’ll be able to access your bookmarks, edit them and all the changes will be saved online.

It is unfortunately not possible to sync bookmarks across multiple web browsers using this method. An alternative that is working with multiple web browsers is the Xmarks extension which supports Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

Tags: bookmarks, google browser, google chrome, google chrome 4, synchronize bookmarks

5 Google Chrome Extensions For Google Services

Martin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:45:57 +0000

The extension development for the Google Chrome browser is slowly taking up speed. While there is still no option to use extensions in the latest public release of the Google browser the developers are slowly improving the capabilities of the extensions manager. The latest dev builds of the web browser support extensions right out of the box without having to supply startup parameters as it was previously required. It is generally expected that extension development will really take off when the public releases of the browser start supporting extensions.

The chance is however relatively good that some developers have already created extensions for popular web services. This article will look at five Google Chrome extensions for popular Google web services including Gmail and Google Reader.

Gmail Checker

Gmail Checker is a simple extension that displays a button in the Google Chrome menu bar. This button displays the number of unread email messages in the Gmail account which makes the extension useful as the user will be notified about new Gmail messages without having to visit the Gmail website first. [link]

Google Reader Checker

This is from the same developer who developed the Gmail Checker extension for the Chrome web browser. It is therefor not surprising that it works exactly like that extension. It will display a new button in the Chrome menubar that shows the count of the unread news items in Google Reader. [link]

Google Tasks

The Google Tasks add-on integrates Google Tasks into the web browser by allowing the user to access the tasks directly from within the web browser without having to open the Google Tasks website. [link]

gPDF

This extension allows the user to open pdf documents directly in Google Docs. There are two advantages of this method. First, no pdf reader needs to be installed on the computer system to read pdf documents and second, it will reduce the chance that the document exploits security vulnerabilities in the installed desktop pdf reader. [link]

Google Wave Checker

A basic extension that will display the unread Google Wave messages in the Google Chrome statusbar. [link]

Verdict:

Extensions are finally beginning to appear in greater numbers for the Google Chrome web browser but are hardly a match for the incredible amount of extensions for the Firefox web browser. It is likely that this is not going to change in the near future. The first step to make extensions more popular to both developers and end users would be to add extension capabilities to the public version of the Google browser.

Tags: chrome extensions, gmail, Google, google chrome, google docs, google reader, google services, google tasks, google wave

Ten Great Google Chrome Themes

Martin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:26:17 +0000

Themes, like extensions, have only been added recently to the Google Chrome web browser. The Google Chrome theme engine on the other hand offers an advantage over other web browsers as it does not require a restart after applying a new theme to the web browser. Designers and theme developers have been busy since to create compelling themes for the Google browser. Google itself has created a Google Chrome Themes website where they post their and third party themes for the Google Chrome browser.

The following list is a selection of ten great Google Chrome themes that can be used to change the look of the web browser.

1. New Moon

2. A light and blue theme

3. Dark Atmosphere

4. TENORI-ON

5. Draves

6. Mac Grey

7. Yulia

8. Hedgehog in the fog

9. James White

10. Bayonetta

Do you know of any other Google Chrome themes that should have made it in this list? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: google browser, google chrome, google chrome theme, google chrome themes

Top 5 Security Plugins For Firefox, Chrome And Internet Explorer

Martin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:35:14 +0000

Which browser is the most secure web browser? That’s a question that is hard to answer and Internet users usually mention the web browser that they are using when asked the question. There are some differences in the architecture. Google Chrome and Internet Explorer for example make use of sandboxes that prevent that the whole web browser is attacked if malicious code is executed in a tab in the browser.

Additional differences become apparent in the web browser plugin development and availability. Some browsers offer thousands of plugins while others only a handful. Plugins can be a very effective way of adding additional protection to the web browser. This article is about the top 5 security plugins for the most popular web browsers. If you know of a plugin that is missing in the list let us (and everyone else) know about it in the comments.

Mozilla Firefox

No Script – The one add-on that many security experts do not want to live without. No Script can block script execution on websites. It does so on all websites by default with the option to enable specific scripts temporarily or permanently. The add-on can prevent script based attacks (most of them are) if used correctly.

Last Pass – The password manager for Firefox. It can generate and remember secure passwords, fill out forms and even auto login the user into websites. The three important security related features are secure password generation, password storing and auto login. Secure passwords have the weakness that they are hard to remember. It is simply easier to remember 123456 than f&z_cU!;re4xZ especially if you consider that unique passwords should be used one every website. With Last Pass users get unlimited secure passwords with the need to only remember the master password. The auto login feature can be very effective against phishing attacks as it won’t work on phishing websites that use a different url than the original.

No Redirect – A versatile add-on that handles several things at once. It will reveal the destination url of short url services and prevent that Internet providers and other companies use DNS hijacks to show their (search pages). This does happen for instance with many major ISPs if the user mistypes a domain extension.

Link Extend and Web of Trust – Link Extend and Web of Trust provide a similar functionality. They provide website ratings to inform the user about potentially dangerous websites. Both display ratings in major search engines but also in a toolbar for the active page.

CS Lite – Cookie permissions on a per-site basis. Allows the user to block or allow cookies permanently or temporarily.

Backup: Febe Firefox Backup. It is always a good idea to create regular backups to be prepared when data gets corrupted or deleted. Febe is a Firefox add-on that can backup all profile data of the web browser including bookmarks, settings, extensions and passwords.

Google Chrome

Last Pass – The Last Pass password manager is also available for the Google Chrome web browser. Extension support is currently only available for dev releases of the Google browser. The functionality on the other hand is similar to that of the Firefox add-on. It is possible to generate passwords, store them and use the auto login feature.

Flash Block – This is the closest to the No Script Firefox add-on. Flash Block will only block Flash content but not other script related objects.

McAfee Site Advisor bookmarklet – There are not many Google Chrome extensions yet. Bookmarklets try to close that gap by allowing all Google Chrome users – and not only those that use a dev version – to make use of additional features. This bookmarklet will display McAfee Site Advisor ratings when executed. Comparable to Wot or Link Extend with the difference that it has to be executed manually.

Adsweep and Adblock+ – Two options to disable most advertisement that is displayed on websites. These add-ons are more about the annoying objects on websites and less about security. They can however be helpful in situations were rogue ads are displayed that spread malware.

Backup: Fav Browser – Fav Browser 2 can backup and restore all settings of Google Chrome 2, 3 or 4.

Internet Explorer

Last Pass – Did we mention that we love Last Pass? The password manager is available as a plugin for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. It offers the same functionality on all supported web browsers including password generation and secure storage of passwords.

Web of Trust or Trend Protect – Both display ratings for the active websites and websites that are listed in the major search engines (Google Search, Yahoo Search, MSN). They can be used as an indicator if a site’s potentially dangerous to visit.

IE7 Pro – A great plugin for Internet Explorer (not only 7 but also Internet Explorer 8) that offers ad blocking and many additional features. It comes closes to the No Script Firefox add-on. The ad blocker includes a Flash Blocker. Another interesting module is userscript support which can be also beneficial to security.

Backup: Fav Backup – You can use the tool to backup and restore Internet Explorer profile settings.

Only four for Internet Explorer. Do you know of additional Internet Explorer security add-ons? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: firefox, firefox security, google chrome, google chrome security, internet explorer security, internet-explorer, security plugins

Google Chrome Translate Plugin

Martin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:37:38 +0000

Extension and plugin development for the Google Chrome web browser is finally taking off with the inclusion of the extension engine in the latest development versions of the Google browser. Chrome users had to start the browser with a command line parameter before if they wanted to enable extensions. It is now more comfortable to work with extensions. Even that comfortable that it beats the Firefox web browser. The main difference is the restart of the browser that is needed in Firefox but not in Google Chrome.

Bubble Translate is a translation plugin for the Google Chrome browser. It uses the Google Translate service to provide on-page translations of selected text. It is recommended to configure the plugin after its installation. A click on the T icon in the Chrome status bar will open the settings where the language of the user needs to be set (default is Afrikaans). Other options in that menu include changing the translation hotkey and the color scheme of the translated text.

The default hotkey to translate items on a website is Ctrl. All that it takes to translate part of a website is to press the Ctrl key and select the text that should be translated with the computer mouse. It takes a moment before the translated version of the text (translated into the language selected in the configuration of the extension) shows up in a bubble next to the selected text.

The extension is an early development stage. This could explain that it sometimes took more than one try to get the translation of a selected text in the browser. Bubble Translate for Google Chrome is available at its Google Code project website.

Tags: bubble translate, google chrome, google chrome translate, google translate

Web Browser Backup Software FavBackup Updated

Martin — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:32:10 +0000

FavBackup allowed Windows users to backup web browser specific settings. The program was easy to use and supported most major web browsers. Some things were not perfect like missing support for custom or multiple user profiles, portable browser support or the disk and computer memory usage during backup jobs. The developer of FavBackup has recently upgraded the backup software to version 2 which addresses most of the issues that users had with the software.

The jump to version 2 of the web browser backup software brings support for Opera 10 and Flock 2.5 (next to the already existing support for Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 2.9 to Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 1 to Google Chrome 4, Safari 3 and 4, Opera 9 and Flock 3). This should cover the most used web browsers in the Windows operating system.

One of the great additions in FavBackup 2 is support for portable web browsers. It is now possible to select a custom location for the user profile for Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Safari and Flock. It is furthermore possible to select any of the identified profiles of the supported web browsers directly.

Other changes in this release are the new ribbon interface, a progress bar, different themes for the backup program, 40% less computer memory usage and minor bug fixes. The new additions make FavBackup 2 a recommended program for web browser backups, especially if multiple different web browsers are installed and used in a computing environment.

Tags: backup software, explorer++, favbackup, firefox backup, google chrome backup, internet, Internet Explorer Backup, opera backup, portable software, web browser, web browser backup, windows software

Google Chrome Fullscreen Address Bar

Martin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:49:06 +0000

Google Chrome’s fullscreen mode is similar to that of other popular web browsers. It will limit the web browser controls and maximize the web browser window at the same time to display the website using as much screen estate as possible. The Google browser on the other hand removes the address bar completely from fullscreen mode unlike Firefox or Internet Explorer which remove the address bar initially but display it again if the user moves the mouse cursor to the upper edge of the screen.

Google Chrome users on the other hand have to press F11 once again to leave fullscreen mode to enter a new url in the address bar before they can enter fullscreen mode again. That’s not a practicable solution especially in situations where screen estate is scarce and every pixel counts (think netbooks and other devices with small computer screens).

The Chrome extension Toolstrip Address Bar provides an interesting solution to the fullscreen problem that Chrome users are facing. Once installed it will display a small arrow icon in the Google Chrome status bar. A click on that arrow will display an alternative address bar which can be used to load websites without leaving fullscreen mode in the Google browser (Ctrl left-click closes the address bar in the status bar of the browser again).

The address bar can also be displayed in normal mode where it becomes an alternative option to open new websites in the Internet browser. The extension can only be added to Google Chrome versions that support extensions which are currently only the developer builds of the Google browser. Google Chrome users can download and install the extension directly by visiting the forum page where it was announced.

Tags: chrome plugins, google chrome, google chrome browser, google chrome extension, google chrome fullscreen

LastPass For Google Chrome Arrives

Martin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:12:25 +0000

There are two Firefox extensions that I do not want to live without: NoScript and LastPass. I’d think about switching to another web browser if that web browser would support these two extensions. This option has come a step closer with the announcement that LastPass has developed an extension for the Google Chrome web browser. LastPass is an excellent password manager and form filler that comes with an incredible feature set that includes one click logins to websites, a secure password generator, form profiles that make it easier to fill out web forms and possibilities to access and use the password manager on other computer systems as long as the master password is available.

The developer’s of the password manager LastPass have now created a first version of LastPass for Google Chrome dev builds. Chrome users who want to install and use the password manager need to do the following (taken from Lee’s explanation over at the Download Squad):

Install a Google Chrome dev build. Skip this step if you already do
Install the LastPass extension by opening https://lastpass.com/lpchrome.crx in the Google browser.
If Chrome refuses to allow you to install it (it tries to save in a loop) go to Wrench -> Options and disable choosing where to download files (this will be fixed in next dev build).
Finally, it is recommended that you disable the built-in password manager by clicking on the Options (under the customize and control ‘wrench’ button). Then choose the ‘Personal Stuff’ tab and select ‘Never save passwords’ and ‘Never save text from forms’

The Windows version of the LastPass extension seems to be very solid right now while Linux and Mac users report problems with the extension. This will be addressed in the next version of the extension according to the developers.

Tags: google browser, google chrome, google chrome lastpass, lastpass, password manager

Want To Impress Your Friends? Run Chrome OS

Martin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:21:50 +0000

We have all read the news that Google is planning to enter the operating system market with their soon to be released Google Chrome OS which is initially targeting the netbook market. Google Chrome OS is based on Google’s web browser Google Chrome and a Linux kernel. Little information are know as of yet. The ones that are available state that Google Chrome OS will be released as Open Source, that it will use a minimalistic design and that it will likely be released in the second half of 2010.

Fake videos showcasing the new Google Chrome OS have been making their rounds on the Internet in the last months. There have not been on the other hand lots of attempts to turn an existing Linux distribution into something that resembles the Google Chrome OS.

Chrome OS is one of the first attempts. It is offered as a Live CD and virtual image currently. Chrome OS uses a GNOME 2.24 desktop environment with the Google Chrome 4.0.207 web browser integrated. Several other programs like Open Office or Flash Player have also been integrated into the distribution.

To be 100% clear here. This is a custom Linux distribution and not the official Google Chrome OS. It still resembles the operating system and can be used as a Live CD to run the Google Chrome web browser on Linux. Interested users can download the Live CD or the virtual image from the Chrome OS Linux website.

Tags: chrome os, google chrome, google chrome os, Linux, operating system, web browser

Who The Hell Needs Google Chrome Frame?

Martin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:37:46 +0000

Innovation is good. Niche software is good as well as there are usually at least some users who might need a program that the majority of users does not even bother thinking about. Google Chrome Frame is a niche product. The niche might however be that small that it lacks the core ingredient: users.

Google Chrome Frame is basically an Internet Explorer plugin that allows Internet Explorer users to use the Google Chrome engine instead of the Internet Explorer engine. So far so good. The major problem here is that the Google Chrome engine only kicks in if it is detected by a website that is supporting it. The other limitation is that users need to be able to install plugins to use it. Home environments usually do not impose web browser limitations to the user which leaves corporate environments as the most likely targets.

These however usually secure Internet Explorer to a point where users cannot do fancy things like installing plugins or changing core settings. There might be businesses with lower security standards but the majority is probably dead serious about security.

Which leaves two types of users who might be a target.

Users who work exclusively with Internet Explorer and like to use Google Chrome Frame on some websites to experience better performance and technology support.
Users who are forced to work with Internet Explorer, like Google Chrome better and are allowed to install plugins.

The plugin has a size of about 500 Kilobytes and will download Google Chrome during the installation process. Check out the plugin’s homepage for additional information and downloads. It is compatible with Internet Explorer 8, 7 and 6. If you give it a try let us know how you feel about it. Google is a bit shy about test pages not listing a single one on the project page yet. Users do have the option to force the Google Chrome Frame plugin to take over by adding cf: in front of any url.

Tags: google browser, google chrome, google chrome frame, internet-explorer, web browser

Web Browser Have Impact On Battery Life

Martin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:52:49 +0000

A recent Anandtech study suggests that the web browser has an impact on a mobile PCs battery usage. The test, which analyzed battery performance under various popular web browsers and three websites, can probably not be seen as representative but it could indicate which web browser uses less battery power to operate. A test with more websites would certainly help to get a global result. Still, test results were somewhat surprisingly as the difference between the best and worst performing web browser were greater than two hours.

The web browsers of the test were: Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5.2 with and without adblock add-on, Google Chrome 2, Opera 9.64, 10.0b3 and Safari 4. Three laptops were used in the test. Two entry level Gateway laptops with AMD and Intel cpus and the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA netbook.

Gateway NV52

Gateway NV58

Asus EEE PC 1005HA

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 is the web browser that drains the least amount of battery on the two entry level laptops. Most other web browsers with the exception of Safari come close to that results, especially Firefox with the adblock add-on. The benefit of the adblock add-on suggests that web advertisement does have an impact on battery usage. Safari 4 is the only web browser in the test that performed worst in all three tests.

Google Chrome 2 was first in the netbook test with all other web browsers close by except for Safari which completely drained the battery of the netbook more than two hours earlier than the other web browsers.

Even if the test needs to be replicated with a larger website sample size it seems to indicate that laptop users are better off without the Safari web browser. Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox with adblock and Google Chrome were the best performing web browsers in the test.

Tags: battery, battery drain, firefox, google chrome, internet-explorer, laptop, netbook, opera, safari, web browser

Google Releases Google Chrome 3

Martin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:52:33 +0000

Version chaos; That’s what many web users called Google’s fast paced versioning of their Google Chrome web browser. The stable release was Google Chrome 2 for some time, the stable developer build Google Chrome 3 and the latest build Google Chrome 4. Google Chrome 2 was the version that was offered at the Google Chrome website until now. Tech savvy users were able to download the dev builds of the Google browser which cam with all kind of improvements that made it a better browser.

Today Google finally released Google Chrome 3 to the public. Users who are currently using Google Chrome 2 will see an update prompt soon to update to the new release. Everyone else can simply go to the Google Chrome website and download the latest official public release of the browser right there.

The official Google blog has published some benchmarks and other information that shall help convince users to switch to version 3 of the Google browser. The benchmarks show the performance of different releases of Google Chrome with Google Chrome 3 being the fastest and most powerful yet.

Users who have only used Google Chrome in the past will be able to access several new features besides the performance, compatibility and stability gains: This includes a new tab page which is shown when the user opens a blank new tab in the web browser. Other changes include HTML5 capabilities, additions to the Omnibox (the address bar of the browser) and theme support.

Best of all; The confusion is reduced as there are only two versions of the web browser out there currently. The stable Google Chrome 3 which is offered publicly and the developer version that has already reached version 4 and is therefor called Google Chrome 4. It is likely that the confusion will grow again once Google decides to release developer versions of Google Chrome 5.

Tags: google browser, google chrome, google chrome 3, google chrome 4, web browser

Finally: Google Chrome Extensions Turned On By Default In Dev Releases

Martin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:32:52 +0000

Not many users understood why the Google Chrome development team decided to operate with lots of switches to manage some functionality of the web browser. Users who wanted to turn on the extension engine had to launch the web browser with a parameter, the same is true for userscript support, bookmark syncing and dozens of other switches that are available as launch parameters. The reason for this method of testing is not clear to most users who think that Google could also add options to enable or disable these features in the web browser’s settings which would make it more comfortable.

There are some launch parameters that are used more often than others. The parameter to enable extensions is definitely in the top list especially with the recent increase in extensions that get released for the Google browser.

Google finally made the decision to turn on extensions by default in all Google Chrome dev releases that are released in the future (Google Chrome 4.x). Users of the latest stable release of the web browser (Google Chrome 2.x) and those of the development builds of Google Chrome 3.x are still stuck with either no extension support at all or the need to enable it by launching Google Chrome with the command line parameter.

It is also not clear if the developers will enable extension support by default when they release Google Chrome 3 final.

Tags: google browser, google chrome, google chrome extensions, google chrome plugins, web browser

Google Chrome Offline Installer

Martin — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:42:51 +0000

The only option to install Google Chrome that is provided on the official website of the Google browser is an online installer that will perform the installation right after clicking on the install link. Some users and administrators might need a different solution. This can be because of firewall or network rules, distribution on computer systems that are not connected to the Internet or to save bandwidth by using the same installer on multiple computer systems.

There are probably additional reasons for a Google Chrome offline installer. There is however an easy – but somewhat hidden – option for users who want to download an offline installer for Google Chrome.

All that these users need to do is to append the parameter standalone=1 to the website where Google Chrome can be downloaded. Here are the two download links for the latest official and latest beta version of the Google browser:

Latest official: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?standalone=1
Latest beta: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=betachannel&standalone=1

This will download the full installer of the selected Google Chrome browser to the local computer system. It is then possible to install Google Chrome without Internet connection by simply distributing the offline installer to the computer system where it should be installed.

The Google Chrome developers mentioned that it might not be possible to auto-update these versions of the Google Chrome browser. The auto update service should however be active when downloading the offline installers. They should work normally if an Internet connection is present to check for updates.

Tags: chrome offline installer, chrome update, download google chrome, google browser, google chrome, google chrome offline installer, google chrome offline setup

Enable flash and use themes in Google Chrome Linux

Jack Wallen — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:50:46 +0000

Google Chrome is making huge gains in the web browser space. It has done wonders to catch up to all of the competition and, in some ways, has surpassed the competition. The only problem for Linux users is that Chrome has lagged behind a bit. That doesn’t mean Linux users can not get their Chrome on in Linux. If you have yet to install Chrome in Linux you can see how to in my article “Install Google Chrome on Linux (and why you should)“.

Upon conclusion of that article you will have a very basic installation of Chrome that will browse quite well and fast. The problem is, however, you won’t have flash working, nor will you know how to add themes to your installation. Although themes are not crucial to using Chrome, flash is. Without getting flash working, you won’t be able to do things like view youtube videos.

By the end of this article you will be running Google Chrome with flash support enabled and using the available themes.

Before you begin

The first housekeeping task you need to do is make sure you have flash working for Firefox. Most likely you already do. To figure this out open up Firefox and enter “about:plugins” (no quotes) in the address bar and hit enter. When this page appears you should see Shockwave Flash listed somewhere on the page. If you do, Flash is working fine and you are ready to go. If not you will need to get flash installed. If you are using Ubuntu 9.04 this is simple: Navigate Firefox to a page that requires Flash. When the toolbar popup appears informing you a missing plugin needs to be installed go ahead with that installation. Make sure, however, you install the “official” Flash plugin – not either of the open source versions. After this is installed restart Firefox and check the “about:plugins” page again. Is it there? Good. You’re ready to move on to Google Chrome.

The first step is to make sure you have the most recent build of Chrome. As of this writing the most recent built is 4.0.202.2. You can find that out by clicking on the Settings dropdown and selecting “About Google Chrome”. Once you know you have the latest build you are ready to go.

Adding Flash support

The first thing you need to do is locate the file libflashplayer.so. To do this issue the command:

locate libflashplayer.so

The results of that command should look similar to:

/usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/iceape/plugins/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/iceweasel/plugins/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

The file you will want to work with is in:

/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/

But before you do anything you need to create a plugins directory for Chrome. To do this issue the command:

sudo mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins

Now you need to copy the libflashplayer.so file to the newly created plugins directory with the following command:

cp /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so /opt/google/chrome/plugins/

The final step is to run Google Chrome with plugins enabled. To do that you start Google Chrome with the following command:

google-chrome –enable-plugins

Now if you enter “about:plugins” (no quotes) in the address bar of Google Chrome, you will see an entry for Shockwave Flash listed.

You might want to change all of your Google Chrome launchers to reflect this command change.

Themes

Themes are simple. All you have to do is navigate to the Google Themes Gallery, select the theme you like, and click the Apply Theme button underneath the theme. After the file has downloaded the theme will change automatically. The only issue I have found with Google Themes on Linux is the Transparent theme will not work properly.

Final thoughts

I will warn you that the Flash plugin will crash a lot. Fortunately, the way Chrome works is that Flash crashing will not bring the browser down. But so far, Google Chrome has failed to disappoint on any level.

Tags: flash player, flash support chrome, google chrome themes, libflashplayer.so

Add Bookmarks Button In Google Chrome Address Bar

Martin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:03:43 +0000

The Google Chrome user interface is currently more static that that of the Firefox or Opera web browser. There is for example no customize option to add or remove elements from the various toolbars of the Google browser. Google Chrome is displaying by default three toolbars. The tabbar at the top, then the address bar with the address field, navigation controls and menus and the bookmarks bar. The bookmarks bar is the only toolbar that can be removed from the display to save screen estate. This would however mean that the bookmarks would be less accessible in the web browser as they could only be accessed in the Bookmark Manager.

Lee over at the Download Squad found a great switch for the Google Chrome browser to add a bookmark button to the Google Chrome address bar. This might be interesting for Google Chrome users who want to access their bookmarks quickly but prefer to have additional screen estate by removing the bookmarks toolbar.

The bookmarks button can be enabled by launching the Google browser with the parameter –bookmark-menu. This apparently only works in the Windows version of Google Chrome but there in Google Chrome 2, 3 and 4. A new bookmark button is displayed after launching the Google browser with the parameter that provides access to all bookmarks that have been created or imported into the web browser.

The bookmarks bar can then be disabled by right-clicking it and left-clicking the entry Always show bookmarks bar. It will still be displayed when opening a new tab but it will be hidden when a website is opened. Users who want to launch the Google browser with several switches can do so by adding a space between the switches. The easiest way to launch Google Chrome with switches is to press Windows R to open the run box and to enter chrome –switch1 –switch2 –switch3 in the run box which will launch the Chrome browser with the parameters switch1, switch2 and switch 3. via Download Squad.

Tags: bookmark menu, bookmarks, Google, google browser, google chrome, google chrome bookmarks, web browser

Chrome Plus Is A Custom Chrome Build With Extra Functionality

Martin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:12:44 +0000

Skilled programmers can use the Chromium code to build their own version of the Chrome web browser. That’s how the Chrome Plus project started. The developer’s have taken the default build of the Google Chrome web browser and have added extra functionality to it. Chromium Plus offers five additional features next to the full feature list of the Google Chrome 3 branch.

These five features add mouse gestures, super drag, IE tabs, download tool support in context menus and double-click functionality to close pages to the web browser.

All options are accessible from the Chrome option’s page that has been expanded and is now offering access to Chrome Plus options in an extra tab.

Super Drag is an interesting new option to open links by dragging them. These links can either be opened in the foreground or background.

Mouse gestures and double-clicking tabs to close them are pretty self-explanatory. Available mouse gestures include navigating back and forward, switching to tabs, closing tabs or launching a page up or down command. Holding the right-mouse button and dragging the mouse in available directions will trigger the commands.

Custom builds often offer improvements in performance or functionality. Their main downside on the other hand is the time it takes to “follow” the builds of the official developers. It usually takes additional time to react on the latest builds that are provided by the Chrome developers which can sometimes be problematic (e.g. when security updates are issues).

Chrome Plus (via Download Squad) can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Tags: Chrome, chrome plus, chromium, google chrome, web browser

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