HitChrome

Back in September of 2008 Google entered the web browser arena with the Beta release of their new Chrome browser. On the Google Chrome web site, this explanation is posted regarding why they chose to build Chrome: “So much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if you started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.”

Millions have downloaded and tried Chrome already. It has a unique interface and some innovative features. However, within days of its release it was found to have a couple security issues. In Google’s defense, this is a Beta version of the software and Chrome was scrutinized heavily by security researchers since it was from Google- the Web company. But, those flaws are not reason enough to not check Chrome out.

You can read overview of the security features of Google Chrome, which also contains a link to download the latest version of the software if you care to take it for a spin.

With the full release of Chrome 1.0 in December, Google has just released Chrome 2.0 alpha that brings many noticeable improvements over Chrome 1.0. With this new alpha release of Chrome 2.0, the browser has been overhauled in which it handles HTTP.

Chrome 2.0 browser also includes the addition of auto-complete in text fields, full page zoom, improvements in spell checker, and auto scroll. Google also states that the 2.0 alpha is more reliable and faster browsing is achieved by accessing your hard drive less often.

Now you can even import bookmarks from Google Bookmarks, a feature that was not found in Chrome 1.0. You also have the ability to drag a tab to certain positions on your monitor and have a docking icon appear.

One interesting feature, worth mention, is the “Profiles” feature in this new release. The “Profiles” feature lets users separate their browser settings, including bookmarks, history, and cookies into different categories. For example if you use your work computer for personal use, you can set up a work profile and a personal profile so that your bookmarks, history and home pages are kept separate.

A new version of WebKit rendering engine has also been implemented in Chrome 2.0 that’s the same as the one used in Apple’s Safari 3.1 web browser. The new rendering engine enables some CSS coding features such as reflections, masks, gradients, and canvas drawing.

To get the new version of Chrome 2.0 you will need to have Chrome 1.0 installed on your PC. You will also need to subscribe to Google’s Developer Preview Channel. Keep in mind that Chrome 2.0 is an alpha release and expect it to crash quite often.

The focus of Chrome 2.0 is on the implementation of a number of new features, including some key features missing from the first version. In addition, some bug fixes and security updates have been made as well.

Updates to the Chrome browser include the addition of form auto complete (one of the features most obviously missing from the initial release that lets Chrome remember what has been typed into fields on Web pages), full-page zoom, spell checking improvements, and auto-scrolling.

Google on Thursday released the pre-beta, officially called 2.0.156.1, to its Dev Channel, which is where developers get a chance to take a look at possibly new features.

Moreover Google said Friday it hopes to release versions for Mac OS X and Linux by the first half of the year and released a new version Wednesday that paves the way for the most requested feature, extensions. Brian Rakowski, Chrome’s product manager, said the company wants to release Chrome for Mac and Linux before the first half of 2009 is up.

Both Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, and Microsoft, whose Internet Explorer still accounts for nearly 70% of all browsers, rely on periodic major updates that go through long periods of beta testing. Mozilla, for instance, is working through beta testing of Firefox 3.1, the successor to Firefox 3.0, which launched in June 2008.

Until now, Google has only offered Chrome on Windows in two versions, the Stable-channel and the Dev-Channel. With the latest dev-channel release, Google is adding a third development milestone release with a Beta-channel as well.

Several computer vendors are exploring the possibility of including Google Chrome as the default Internet Web browser of choice. Most PCs and laptops traditionally come with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer installed.

Google Inc is talking with PC vendors to include its Chrome Web browser new desktop PCs, notebooks, and laptops. New PCs customarily come with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the default browser. The Microsoft operating system, such as Windows and Vista, include IE as the default.

Even so, top companies such as Dell, HP, Acer, and Toshiba are showing interest in a pre-install agreement with Google. The agreement would replace Internet Explorer as the default Internet Web browser with Google Chrome.

“We could work with an OEM and have them ship computers with Chrome pre-installed,” Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management at Google, said in a statement.

The search engine giant wants to gain more acceptance for its latest project by pre-installing it on new PCs. Some vendors already like the idea.

Internet Explorer currently leads the market which critics say having the browser set as a default is the primary reason. In fact, IE has been the default Internet Web browser for over a decade.

Google Chrome recently came out of beta. New versions of the browser will be released in January 2009 for Linux and Mac computers.

Google has made some interesting changes to the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) which users are required to sign.

Chrome, which was launched for beta testing only in September this year, has already performed well in such a short period, and now Google is going all out to promote it even further, and increase their customer base.

Thus the latest changes to the EULA have been made keeping this target in mind. Some of the noteworthy changes are mentioned below.

Earlier, people who were not of a legal age to enter into an agreement with Google, were not allowed (legally) to use Chrome. Now, that restriction has been totally done away with.

Google had made it mandatory for users to provide personal identification and contact data, and also keep it up to date, while signing the EULA. That section is now no longer applicable.

Google had specifically banned the use of automated access to their browser. They have now decided to delete that clause, as long as the user does not indulge in any activity that could interrupt or disrupt the services. Read the rest of this entry »

Google is thinking of restricting its Chrome browser’s ability to look at local Web pages to tighten the Web browser’s security.

According to Information Week , insider attacks tend to pose a greater computer security risk than external ones because insiders have greater systems access privileges.

In the last security fix for a vulnerability that allowed downloaded HTML files to read other local files and send them out to the Internet there was a clue to Google’s thinking on the problem.

Part of the fix included preventing local files from connecting to the Web with an XMLHttpRequest(), a widely used means of sending text data from Web browsers to Web servers.

Now in the Chromium Blog, Google engineer Adam Barth suggested that engineers wanted to extend this sort of restriction and wants additional restrictions on local Web pages.

This could include directory-based restrictions or preventing local Web pages from sending information to the Internet across a broader set of protocols.

Google does not like Microsoft’s technique of disabling JavaScript with an ‘infobar’ override. It thinks that users are too dumb to understand the security implications of re-enabling JavaScript.

However if Chrome does become that inflexible offline Web applications, like the open source TiddlyWiki, which relies on local HTML pages, could become useless. X

The short-lived Google Lively web world project will be closing down at the end of the year so the search giant can focus on its core projects.

Lasting a brief five months following a two-year development, Google’s Lively online world is the latest victim of the economic troubles coming to the pioneering internet firm.

In an post on the official Google Blog, Google solemnly states, “Despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we’ve decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year.”

The move is mostly a survival tactic, allowing the company to “prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.”

A combination of flat user growth and a seeming lack of interest (Lively wasn’t even compatible with Google’s heavily-pushed Chrome browser) attributed to its death.

Sad news for the few thousand users Lively had retained after the launch hype wore off during the summer. To those who enjoyed the service, Google encourages them “to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms.”

Google is actively expanding the functionality of its open source Chrome browser, which launched earlier this year. The latest features under active development are made available through the developer update channel prior to public release.

The latest developer channel builds include a full bookmark manager with a built-in search feature and support for organizing bookmarks into nested folders. I tested this feature by importing my Firefox bookmarks. The new bookmark manager appears to be loosely modeled after the one in Firefox. Like the rest of Chrome, it is still relatively minimalistic but it gets the job done. The sidebar displays the expandable folder heirarchy and the main pane shows a list of all of the bookmarks in the selected folder. Unlike Firefox, Chrome’s bookmark manager does not have an editing panel. You can modify a bookmark through the bookmark manager by right-clicking and selecting edit.

Chrome users who want to help test and get an early look at new improvements can use the Chrome channel chooser to select the developer channel. Instructions on how to do this are available at the Chromium documentation web site. For more information about the latest features and bugs, see the developer release at the Chrome release blog. Keep in mind that the developer channel versions are unstable testing builds and aren’t intended to be as robust as official releases.

Perhaps the biggest threat to Google’s increasing dominance of Internet search and advertising is the rising fear, justified or not, that Google’s broadening reach is giving it unchecked power.

This scrutiny goes deeper than the skeptical eye that lawmakers and the Justice Department have given Google’s proposed ad partnership with Yahoo. Many objections to that deal are financial, and surround whether Google and Yahoo could unfairly drive up online ad prices.

A bigger long-term concern for Google could be criticisms over something less tangible — privacy. Increasingly, as Google burrows deeper into everyday computing, its product announcements are prompting questions about its ability to gather more potentially sensitive personal information from users.

Why does Google log the details of search queries for so long? What does it do with the information? Does it combine data from the search engine with information it collects through other avenues — such as its recently released Web browser, Chrome?

Data gathered through most of the company’s services “disappears into a black hole once it hits the Googleplex and it’s impossible to track that information.” Read the rest of this entry »

After the recent updates from Firefox and Opera in the form of Firefox 3.1 Beta and Opera 9.6, its Chrome’s turn to go under the knife. Most users might have noticed how Mozilla has concentrated on speed with the latest Firefox update. Opera, on the other hand, now has even more features under its belt, retaining its position as one of the most feature packed browsers available now - off the shelf. And yes, support for three Indian languages in Opera too has been a welcome addition.

Chrome, in the meantime, whose market share dipped to 0.78 percent after reaching a peak of 1.7 just after its launch, seems to be concentrating on security and the occasional performance tweaks. The latest version of Chrome is 03.154.9, a beta release that claims to fix many security holes and offers zippier performance. The update will be automatically applied - however you can choose to “force” update to this version by selecting the update option from the “About” dialog. Note that not all users will see this option as Google seems to be releasing the update in patches. Patience, as they say, is a virtue!

As for the changes, here are some examples. On the security front, the security vulnerability that allowed malicious websites to spoof the addresses in pop-ups has been patched. The download manager has been “enhanced” to be more secure. Read the rest of this entry »