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Google and Yahoo look all set to drop their proposed ad alliance and this could happen as early as next week as early as next week because of antitrust objections by the Justice Department, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Google is considering pulling out of the deal because it doesn’t want to accept the conditions the government might require to avoid harm to competition, the sources said.

The officials from the two companies met with regulators and appeared to be unwilling to make the compromises needed to satisfy Justice Department concerns that their combined power would overwhelm the online advertising market.

The deal was announced in June and proposed that Google start selling its search ads throughout Yahoo’s US properties.

Needless to say that the demise of the plan would represent another tough blow for Yahoo, which had hoped that the tie-up with Google would help it boost revenues after it rejected a 47.5-billion-dollar takeover bid from Microsoft. This upcoming collapse of the planned venture between the two biggest online advertising companies would deprive Yahoo of as much as 450 million dollars in operating cash flow over a year, according to estimates. What’s Yahoo upto next?

Google quietly updated its web browser to v0.3 earlier today. According to Google, the new release fixes several “top” bugs, increases the software’s performance, and patches security problems. The software is available in 42 languages.

Chrome launched as v0.2 and made a huge impact almost months ago. Interest in the browser has somewhat faded since then. According to Net Applications, Chrome currently has a market share of about 0.7%, down from more than 1% in early September. While it has made an overall positive impression on the media, the browser is far from complete. One major update was rolled out today.

The new version a pop-up spoofing vulnerability, enables touchpad scrolling, promises more performance and reliability for Flash, Silverlight, Quicktime and Windows Media plug-in, fixes a “Chrome has crashed” message when closing a tab with an Acrobat 9 PDF and works much better with web proxies now. Also, Chrome no longer stores data from secure web sites. Read the rest of this entry »

Some time back, Google executive Marissa Mayer had made an impassioned - not to mention lengthy and kind of complicated argument over on Google’s blog about how much effort the company has to put in to keeping its home page clean. We were told it’s space is sacred: you can’t add new stuff to it, because it makes the homepage all cluttered and messy. That’s not Googley.

The real idea was to explain that the company had decided to add a link to its privacy policies on the homepage - with the underlying implication being that privacy was so important it deserved space on that hallowed virtual wall.

All that means very little in the long run. After all, the company’s supposed 28 word limit doesn’t count promotional text - and we’ve had plenty of that recently. Indeed, just a few weeks after Mayer’s post, we were suddenly treated to a big old link telling us to download Chrome, Google’s new browser. It didn’t last too long, but it was still there.

I noticed today another new addition: a link trying to get users to buy the T-Mobile G1/ You remember, the Google-powered phone.

That link adds nine words - a 33% increase in wordcount. Not very Googley, really, is it?

When it comes to browsers, I’ve tried them all and was really disappointed when Google released their Chrome for Windows only. I regularly switch between Firefox and the latest nightly build from Webkit (essentially Safari) right now. Firefox has the extensibility I rely on. I had hoped that Chrome would magically become my new go-to browser. Unfortunately, Chrome is not yet nearly as extensible as Firefox, and isn’t available for Mac (yet).

So imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon the latest experimental Firefox build from Mozilla, called Minefield. This Minefield should not be confused with the unofficial optimized builds of Firefox, which are also referred to as Minefield. Minefield is Mozilla’s code-name for this generation of Firefox, and the code name is used for unofficial builds to avoid infringing upon the Firefox name.

Now, what’s so special about the Mozilla Minefield build? It’s fast… smokin’ fast. This is essentially a version of Firefox with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine under the hood, and as Ars Technica reports, it tests even faster than Google’s V8 JavaScript engine.

As most Mac users have noted, Firefox is kind of pokey on the Mac platform, particularly compared with WebKit or even Safari, and even when compared with Firefox on a similarly spec’d Windows machine. Version 3 of Firefox was supposed to fix the performance problem, and while it’s somewhat better, it’s still not great. Read the rest of this entry »

The browser wars are alive and well. While Google is working out the kinks in its beta version of Chrome — a Wednesday update fixed issues with crashing and video playback — Firefox is pushing a beta 3.1 version that promises new features and better performance. Meanwhile, market leader Microsoft Relevant Products/Services still dominates with Internet Explorer 7.

“The browser wars continue. But consumers already have plenty of choices with IE, Safari, Firefox and Opera. The real question is if Google can get those users to shift. Mainstream consumers are wondering why they need to make the transition,” said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile Relevant Products/Services strategy for Jupitermedia. “Chrome is still a solution in search of a problem.”

Chrome’s Web 2.0 Advantage

If test results from WebSketch are right, Chrome may have a marketable advantage: Speed. The company reported a 3x performance improvement over Microsoft IE 7 when using Google Chrome. Read the rest of this entry »

Which browser is the best? It depends on what you use it for. Some will opt for Google’s simple, pared-down design, while others will prefer IE8’s Web development tools. Both IE8 and Firefox are quick, but Chrome is quicker, according to independent tests. Chrome and IE8 both have address bars that try to anticipate what you want to search for next.

The battle for control of your desktop has switched to the browser, with the launch of Google’s brand new Internet Explorer rival, Chrome.

What is Chrome? It’s a simple, fast Web browser, stripped down to its bare essentials, much like Google’s search homepage: straightforward and effective. Google cofounder Sergey Brin describes it as “basic”.

Why is the browser market so crucial? First of all, because our choice of browser affects our choice of search engine, but more crucially, because our online behavior is evolving. Most of us now use the Web for far more than just reading static pages — we use it for richer applications, such as email, or playing games. A faster, more secure, more stable browser is therefore more in demand.

So another benevolent act by Google? Microsoft Relevant Products/Services doesn’t see it that way. Google is betting on the fact that over the next few years, most users will move from using applications stored on their personal computers to applications hosted by remote data centers, allowing them to access their data wherever and whenever they like — a switch to so-called cloud computing that would make Microsoft’s PC-based Windows less relevant. Chrome gives Google a leg-up into this new market. Read the rest of this entry »

The Internet pundits had begun writing off Chrome, Google’s new browser,before it was barely out of its wrapping. As the first wave of early-adopter enthusiasts lost interest in their experiments and returned to their original browsers, so analysts began to declare Chrome dead. But there is a far more interesting set of dynamics at work. Google is not after Microsoft’s share of the browser market: it’s after something much bigger.

To understand what’s truly and enduringly interesting about Google Chrome, one needs to understand what is special about V8, its new Javascript engine.

Ten years ago, Java was so slow it was inconceivable that anybody could use it to build serious systems; its garbage collection process brought entire applications to a shuddering halt.  Then a new virtual machine for Java that enabled code to be compiled on the fly, improving Java’s performance 20 times or more was developed.

Hotspot changed everything: suddenly Java became a language to take very seriously indeed.

Without V8, Javascript suffers from the same problem Java had ten years ago: it’s painfully, unbelievably slow, tens or even hundreds of thousands of times slower than other languages. So despite its flexibility, it’s never been used for any kind of serious development; in fact, it’s been the single biggest hurdle to the development of more interesting applications that can run inside a browser. Read the rest of this entry »

Mozilla has released the first public preview of its mobile browser and has offered it for download in different versions tailored for PC and Mac users.

Currently it has been pitched as an “early developer release” and the company aims to receive feedback from its users.

The new browser which has been code named as “Fennec” includes touch screen support along with tabbed browsing interface.

Incidentally the name “Fennec” traces its origin to the small Fennec fox which thrives in the Sahara desert and is characterised by its huge ears.

Some of its other notable features include an advanced pop up blocker, a password manager and it plans to include geolocation in its later versions.

Fennec retails many elements of the Firefox 3 such as its characteristic address bar; however a major improvement includes the address bar doubling up as search bar similar to what has been noticed in Google Chrome. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer reigns supreme with about 80% of the overall share, ten years back Netscape dominated the field. In second is Mozilla’s Firefox which has been steadily narrowing the gap with close to 20% of the browser market now.

And now comes the release of Google’s much-anticipated Chrome browser, add in Opera and Safari, there is plenty of competition.

A simple and fast browser, the recently-launched Chrome lives up to the billing. I haven’t used it that much – I’ve been a Firefox guy for a few years now – but pages according to my unscientific study do render a bit quicker than Firefox or the bloated Internet Explorer.

It’s also very clean, very sleek and has a less weighty feel in use.

Tabs can be created with a single click or via a drag among other. New, blank tabs bring up snapshots of most visited sites and recent bookmarks to get you started faster. Unlike Firefox the other tbas remain alive, pretty much unlike Firfox – a very nice feature!

The browser’s address bar serves as a direct URL entry and a Google search box, all in one (Firefox also has this).

There’s also an “incognito” browser feature, which when activated allows you to surf the web without those page data, cookies, etc., stored in your history or anywhere on your hard drive.

And of course because it is Google, everything from your bookmarks to browsing history is quickly and easily searchable. Read the rest of this entry »

A new developer version has been released by Google to fic operational problems of its Chrome browser.

Version 0.3.154.3 of Google’s Chrome has been released to Chrome Dev channel, which allows developers to get access and test the latest fixes to new features as they’re being developed.

“Release 154.0 had a few browser crashes, including a crash on start-up on tablet PCs running Windows Vista. We fixed the new crashes and 154.3 should be much more stable.” said Mark Larson, Google Chrome program manager.

There are more plug-in performance updates in this release, including fixing some videos that halt after one second and plug-ins causing the browser to become unresponsive.”

The update also made Chrome more secure, according to Larson, with new security features for downloaded files.