New Beta version of Chrome available

Google just released a new beta version of Chrome, Google's first web browser, which addresses a number of issues we had noticed in earlier releases. Besides improving the performance and stability of a number of plugins, including Flash, Sliverlight, and Quicktime, as well as fixing some security issues, Google also finally added the ability to add words to the built-in spell checker.

Other updates include fixes to scrolling with laptop touchpads and better reliability for those users who access the web through a proxy server.

If you are using Chrome, your browser will update itself in the next few days, or, if you are impatient, you can also just download the new version directly or go to "About Google Chrome" and see if the update is already available for you.

Trojan Horse?

Earlier this month, we also wondered if Google was positioning Chrome as a Trojan horse for indexing password protected sites. Earlier versions of Chrome would take a snapshot of every site you visited, whether it was password protected or not, which gave rise to some speculations about Google's motivations beyond creating a searchable index of those sites on a user's desktop. Now, Google explicitly states that Chrome no longer stores data from secure sites that use https: and show a lock in the address bar.

Security Updates

Google also addressed a serious security flaw that was discovered just after the first release of Chrome in September. This flaw had the potential to trick users into opening potentially malevolent files, but now, Google will ask users for permission to open these files. Chrome now also saves every executable file with a .download extension and only converts them to their real file names after you confirm that you want to save them.

Speed

We also tested this new version of Chrome with the SunSpider and Dromaeo benchmarks. In both cases, Chrome showed a clear improvement in performance over the first beta version, even though Google did not mention any performance improvements in the release notes.

AdBlock for Chrome (and other browsers)

One of the bad sides of Chorme is that you can't block the ads. Flash advertisments that cover the whole page are a big pain for anyone. However there is a solution for this. It's called BFilter (click on the link for download) and it acts as a local proxy. Very configurable it can work for any brwser installed on your system. It can even import the AdBlock filter lists database.

BFilter is a filtering web proxy. It was originally intended for removing banner ads only, but since then its capabilities have been greatly extended. Unlike most of the similar tools, it doesn't rely on blacklists (although it does support them). The problem with blacklists is that advertisers are always one step ahead. You see an ad slip through, you update your blacklist, and in case it didn't help, you add a new entry yourself.

The result? A much nicer browsing.

Have fun !

P.S. It filters the Yahoo Mess adverts (no matter the version)

Chrome Under Linux Part 2

Not yet; at least not any official native release by Google that we know about. But if you would really like to try out chrome without the hassle of having to install MS windows in a virtual machine, try out Crossover Chromium. This is not a native port of chrome for linux, but a package installer with wine embedded. Also, this is nowhere close to being as stable as it is under windows and as rightfully pointed out by the developers; this is essentially a proof of concept to show Wine’s capabilities of running native windows application. Packages are available for debian and RPM based linux systems; Mac OS build is also available. Have Fun.

New Google Chrome Show Greasemonkey Support

Recently the latest beta builds from Google Chrome are said to have basic Greasemonkey support. With emphasis on basic.

According to Martin at gHacks, the fact that Google doesn’t yet support an extension system within Chrome means that there are some pretty significant ifs and buts about what’s possible and what’s not with the addition of Greasemonkey. Script loading and a metadata issues are purported to be conflict prone.

As Martin writes, “Only scripts in c:\scripts are loaded and only if the user adds the parameter ‘–enable-greasemonkey’ by appending it to the program’s shortcut.” He goes on to explain that, “The scripts are not limited to a domain but will work on all domains which is usually handled by the @include metadata. The metadata part is ignored which could be problematic….”

The reason for Greasemonkey’s emergence in Chrome, however stifled, is because the software’s creator, Aaron Boodman, is a Google employee, as Google Operating System’s Alex Chitu describes.

If you’re looking to give the latest Greasemonkey-enhanced Chrome build, you can venture over to the Chromium BuildBot website. You’re able to download the most recent development, but keep in mind that stability is not guaranteed.

Did Chrome peak pass already?

At the beginning of September, Google launched a trial version of its Chrome web browser, opening up another front in its war against Microsoft. Now that the dust has settled on the launch, it's time for an update.

Google claims that Chrome loads pages faster and more securely than rival browsers, which should encourage internet users to consider making the switch.

But take a look at this graph - sourced from web analytics company GetClicky. It shows that after its launch to a frenzy of news coverage Chrome peaked with a 3.1% share of the browser market. Since then it's been a steady decline, down to just over 1.5%. And it looks like it will stay that way.
Over the same period, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has seen next to no dent in its market share, which remains virtually unchanged at around 57.2%.

It's still early days of course, but it seems Google has a job on its hands if Chrome is ever to rival Firefox, let alone Internet Explorer. It's possible that most consumers are simply unaware that Google's browser exists. There was a clear frenzy of Chrome-related interest early in September, but that has dwindled away now as the figure from Google Trends to the left shows.

For a time the browser was even featured on the famously minimalist Google search page which must have boosted downloads, but it has since disappeared. Quite why is anybody's guess. But if Google is serious about getting the message across, we can expect to see many more comic strips in the months to come.

Guess what else is so great about Chrome?

Chrome uses V8, the Google Code Open Source JavaScript Engine, instead of native JavaScript.

To see what the speeds look like for JavaScript vs. V8, checkout this browser comparison test found on Digg. IE FAIL! Mozilla FTW!

Along with Google Gears (of War) and the ‘Blob’ API, Chrome looks like it will be king of open source web services very soon, if not already.

Chrome's 'Save As' Flaw Could Give Attackers Control

Google's new Chrome browser is vulnerable to a remote-control attack, Vietnam researcher Bach Khoa Internetwork Security says. Bach Khoa said a total of four Chrome vulnerabilities were discovered, and Google reportedly has issued a patch. An analyst said the vulnerability in Google's Chrome isn't surprising since its a beta product.

Bach Khoa Internetwork Security, a security-research firm in Vietnam, claims to be the first to discover a critical vulnerability in Google's Chrome browser. "This is the first critical Chrome vulnerability permitting [a] hacker to perform a remote code-execution attack and take complete control of the affected system," the firm wrote in its Sept. 5 advisory. While four Chrome vulnerabilities were discovered, Bach Khoa said the "Save As" flaw is the only one that can allow an attacker to launch remote attacks from a victim's PC. Other vulnerabilities just crash the browser.

The vulnerability is caused by a boundary error when handling the "Save As" function. When a user saves a malicious page with a title tag in the HTML code, the program causes a stack-based overflow, according to Bach Khoa. A hacker could construct a specially crafted Web page that contains malicious code, trick a user into visiting that Web site, and convince the user to save the page. That will execute the code and give the attacker privileges to remotely use the infected system.

Google reportedly has issued a patch for the browser, which can be found by telling Chrome to search for an update.

No one should really be surprised by the news of flaws in Chrome, according to Graham Cluley, a senior security consultant at Sophos. Any Google software release is likely to attract a lot of attention from security researchers, he said, all keen to discover if a problem can be found amid all the hoopla of a new product launch.

"The good news is that all the signs are that Google's security team is aware of the importance of securing their applications -- be they on Internet users' hard disks or on the Web -- and appears to work hard to respond rapidly to threats as they emerge. This is always harder, of course, if flaws are not disclosed responsibly," Cluley said.

Google Chrome Privacy - When does it communicate with Google?

Yup, the blogosphere is on fire with concerns over privacy, the EULA, what information Google will/can collect when you use their new Chrome browser, etc (ok it’s also on fire over the release of this thing in general).

Matt Cutts who is a software engineer at Google and currently the head of Google’s Webspam team wrote up a great article detailing questions about privacy and how/when Google Chrome communicates with google.com. Should you be concerned?

The short answer is no. For the long answer, read on.

To read the detailed list visit Matt’s site for his article Preventing paranoia: when does Google Chrome talk to Google.com? For the shorter list, read on:

• If you’re just surfing around the web and clicking on links, that information does not go to google.com.

• If you are typing a search or url in the address bar, Google Chrome will talk to the current search service to try to offer useful query/url suggestions.

• By default, crash reports and other anonymous usage statistics (e.g. which features are used most often) are not sent to Google.

• I believe if Google Chrome sees a very short, stock 404 page (less than 512 bytes), it talks to Google in order to try to suggest other possible pages and options.

• Google Chrome checks for automatic updates every 25 hours.

• Every 30 minutes, Google Chrome downloads a list of 32-bit url hashes of urls thought to be dangerous (malware or phishing). That is a download of data from google.com, not to google.com.
• When you choose your language in the user interface, Google Chrome downloads a spellcheck dictionary. Again, that is a download of data from google.com, not to google.com.

In short it doesn’t appear the is much to worry about and the conspiracy theorists are just freakin out. Not that the almighty Google doesn’t already have enough power and we shouldn’t ever be concerned. However, it appears the initial freak out by those on the net are just inflated conspiracy worries. Another bonus of this browser is that it’ll be open-sourced so any fears can be double checked by reviewing the source code.

Again, this is just the summary, check out Matt’s post for the full low down and more detailed information for each item.

Greasemonkey for Chrome?

Greasemetal is a userscript runtime for Google Chrome. The runtime hosts userscripts (tiny javascript files that modify the webpages being displayed) to be executed on Google Chrome, similar to what Greasemonkey does for Mozilla Firefox, or Greasekit does for Safari.

Greasemetal is developed by Kazuho Oku as part of his research activity at Cybozu Labs, Inc., a public software compary in Japan. Greasemetal is licensed under GNU Public License version 2.

How does it Work?

Google Chrome does not provide any interface to develop browser addons. Greasemetal modifies the behaviour of Google Chrome using an inter-process communication channel called AutomationProxy, which is used for automatically testing the functions of the web browser.

Using Greasemetal

To start using Greasemetal, download and execute the installer.

GreasemetalInstaller.exe (1.2MB)

After installation, launch Greasemetal from the start menu. Greasemetal will in turn start up Google Chrome, while hooking its behaviours to insert userscripts.

Once you have started running Greasemetal, add userscripts to the userjs directory under your My Documents folder (or Documents folder on Windows Visa). If you are unfamiliar with userscripts, a number of scripts are available from userscripts.org.

More Information

Source code of Greasemetal is available at http://kazuho.31tools.com/svn/chromemonkey/. For more information, please refer to the developer's weblog.

In the next release:

• eliminate generation of unnecessary log files and error messages (as much as possible)
• add management UI for userscripts
• add some kind of error logging for debugging userscripts

Also there is a plan to add support for most GM_* functions, if not all of them (it might not be in the next release, though).

Google Chrome vs Mozilla Firefox

Finally, Google Chrome is out of the box and into the sunlight for us to play. So, I did install it and started playing around. Since there are many sources which describe the features of the browser, I thought I would do an initial comparison with my current browser instead. Here we go.

First of all I should mention the setup. When I installed Chrome, I chose to import all my settings from Firefox to Chrome (bookmarks and history included).

Start up Time

On my computer, Firefox takes 8-9 seconds to start and be ready for use. Chrome on the other hand took about a split second to be up and running. And that’s not all of course, it also shows me the most visited site in its default view when it opens.

Chrome is faster by orders of magnitude in starting up as compared to Firefox.

Memory Consumption

After starting both, they end up taking similar amounts of memory to begin with (around 50 MB). However, Chrome is running one extra process (when I view it in my Task Manager). It turns out that chrome fires up one process for every tab that is open (plus one to manage all of these tabs).

Next, I opened up 10 different web pages in 10 different tabs on each browser (the same set on both). Here, Firefox shot up to 132 MB, and chrome opened up multiple processes (one per tab), the total memory for all of these added up to about 230 MB.

Chrome is more memory hungry as compared to FireFox.

However, when I closed all the tabs (except one), Chrome quickly went down to 20 MB, but FireFox went down only to 96 MB.

Firefox takes much longer to release memory resources.

I have to say that there is some smarts behind creating each tab as a separate process:

• Stability – I think this would make the browser more stable. In Firefox, sometimes if one site is misbehaving, then I need to kill the browser (and along with it all the other tabs which are open).
• Security – initial thought suggests, that it will make each tab a bit more isolated from the rest, so may end up making the browser more secure.

Update: In fact, having multiple processes for multiple tabs does help in stability a lot. There is a develop menu in Chrome which lets you access its inbuilt Task Manager. Here I can select and close individual tabs. Eat your heart out Firefox.

Usability Observations

There are some other things that I checked which were important to me from a usability perspective:

• Chrome has more real estate as compared to Firefox – another thing I liked about Chrome is the increased real estate. Chrome puts the tabs on the Title bar of the window. This adds even more real estate for the part which displays the content. Also consider the fact that there is no status bar. Another point for adding real estate. The status shows up within the page.
• Zooming is better in Firefox – I love the way Firefox zooms the entire page instead of just increasing the text size. It’s very handy on my resolution (1920×1200). Instead, Chrome only increases the size of the text, without expanding the layout, which makes the page pretty unreadable after a point.
• Offline Page Caching is better in Firefox – this is another feature in Firefox which I love. Even if I am offline, Firefox will serve a page from the disk (as it was viewed last) for most of my pages.
• Address Bar Readability is better in Chrome – Chrome highlights the domain name of part of the website you are visiting (or fades the rest) so that it is very easy to tell which site you are visiting when there are long URL’s that can distract you.
• Resizable Text Area in Chrome – all text areas in the various web pages have a size handle on them which allows you to change the size. Not extremely useful, but it may come in handy at times. Take a look at the picture below to see what I am saying:

Notice the resize handle on the lower right of the text box. This is the comment box on TechCrunch.com. I can make the box bigger.

Try out Google Spreadsheets, and every cell is extensible like this.

Not very useful, at this stage. But I can imagine this coming in handy on certain web pages.

Application Shortcuts

This deserves a mention on its own. While I can always do this with the other browsers, I will have to put in a lot of effort. And earlier on, it won’t be worth the hassle. However through Chrome, I have the following on my Quick Launch bar:

Notice the Icon with the tool tip. When I click that icon, my gmail account opens in its own nice Chrome Window (and once I have sized it, it remembers the size per such application shortcut). So, now I don’t need to open a browser to visit my most used applications (notice the icon next to Gmail launches my analytics account). When I click on the icon, it launches the following Window:

Pretty neat, I think. I have now a bunch of these ‘web applications’ that I use regularly with their own icons on my quick launch bar (and mapped to my SlickRun). Like I said, the fact that this is so easy to do makes it a worthwhile activity (it takes three clicks).

I am sure there are many more things that I will find which are different between the two browsers, and I will update this post as I find them. So keep checking back.

How to install Google Chrome in Linux

The fact that Google wants to hit directly in the heart of Microsoft with it's new browser Chrome is proven by the fact that Chrome was released for Windows only. Getting chrome to run under Linux proves difficult from the beginning since you can't even download the .exe installer on your Linux from the official site.
However using this link you are able to get the much awaited browser installer on your machine.
Next step is to have Wine installed. As most of you already know Wine is a tool that allows users to run windows software (.exe) in their Linux environments. This Windows-to-Linux translator has updated to 1.1.4, with a lot of fixes aimed at making running Google Chrome in Linux more work-able.
You'll definitely need your terminal open for this one, and the result isn't exactly flawless—no https support, problems with pop-ups, and a bit slower than you'd get in Windows—but it is a neat way for dedicated Linux users to check out what all the fuss is about.
So once you have Wine installed

1. Download winetricks and install it

wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks
sudo cp winetricks /usr/sbin

2. Install allfonts (this is optional)
winetricks allfonts

3. Download the Chrome installer
wget http://gpdl.google.com/chrome/install/149.27/chrome_installer.exe

4. Install Chrome (just follow the onscreen instructions and make sure you create a desktop icon) wine chrome_installer.exe

5. After the install is finished, you won't be able to use Chrome as it needs a bit more hacking. Just close it and open with your favorite editor the Google Chrome.desktop icon created on your Desktop. Make sure your add "--new-http --in-process-plugins", without the quotes at the end of this line:

Exec=env WINEPREFIX="/home/yourusername/.wine" wine "C:\\windows\\profiles\\yourusername\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe"

to make it look like this:
Exec=env WINEPREFIX="/home/yourusername/.wine" wine "C:\\windows\\profiles\\yourusername\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe" --new-http --in-process-plugins

Save the file!
6. Go to desktop and start Google Chrome
7. Enjoy Chrome under Linux, but don't forget to google for "Chrome for Linux" from time to time in order to fully benefit from this browser once it will have a Linux version lunched.

How to Stumebleupon without firefox addons on Google chrome,Safari,Opera browser

Here is a quick wrap up on how to stumbleupon webpages on Google chrome,Opera and safari web browser which doesn’t support Mozilla firefox addon!

Stumbleupon Google chrome addon/bookmarklet

As we know Google chrome browser is not addon compatible and for this reason we will be using bookmarklets and other easy manual ways to stumble,review and thumbs up or thumbs down a website.

Using chrome addon type bookmarklet – Drag this Stumble it on your Chrome bookmark and whenever you want to review a website just click on Stumble it so that you can review the site without any stumbleupon toolbar.

Extra Source Google chrome bookmarklet addons

Stumbling webpages without Su toolbar

Stumbleupon type toolbar for Safari browser

Not exactly a toolbar but stumbi is a type of addon built for Safari web browser to stumble upon webpages,though the features on stumbi are not as powerful as firefox stumbleupon addon but still stumbi can perform tasks like reviewing website,stumbling,thumbs up,thumps down and has send to a friend option with couple of other easy stumbling features.Stumbi requires SIMBL, which is included in the download and installs automatically.

Download Stumbi for Safari (source)

Stumblupon website on Opera browser

Another useful look-a-like stumbleupon toolbar type addon is Operastumbler for Opera web browser,this works just like stumbi but has some extra features which lets you surf different channels, videos, photos, and more based on there interests.Just login to Opera stumbler using your stumbleupon login details and download the toolbar.

Download Stumbleupon toolbar for Opera browser

Speed test: Google Chrome beats Firefox, IE, Safari

Google introduced Chrome in part because it wants faster browsing and the richer Web applications that speed will unlock. So how does Chrome actually stack up?

Google's Chrome overpowers the other browsers on the five subtests by which Google measures its browser's JavaScript performance.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

Lars Bak, the Google engineer who was the technical leader for Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine, said at the launch event Tuesday he's confident Chrome is "many times faster" than the rivals at running JavaScript, the programming language that powers Google Docs, Gmail, and many other Web applications.

But when pressed for specifics, he told me to try them out. So I did.

Google offers a site with five JavaScript benchmarks. On each one of these tests, Chrome clearly trounced the competition. I hope benchmarking experts and developers will weigh in with comments about how well these tests represent true JavaScript performance on the Web--either for ordinary sites or for rich Web apps.

Here's the site description of the speed tests:

• Richards: OS kernel simulation benchmark, originally written in BCPL by Martin Richards (539 lines).

• DeltaBlue: One-way constraint solver, originally written in Smalltalk by John Maloney and Mario Wolczko (880 lines).

• Crypto: Encryption and decryption benchmark based on code by Tom Wu (1,689 lines).

• RayTrace: Ray tracer benchmark based on code by Adam Burmister (3,418 lines).

• EarleyBoyer: Classic Scheme benchmarks, translated to JavaScript by Florian Loitsch's Scheme2Js compiler (4,682 lines).

Google's overall score is head and shoulders above the competition for executing JavaScript.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

A few notes: First, your mileage may vary; I ran these tests on my dual-core Windows XP machine.

Second, my apologies here to Opera, whose browser I don't have installed.

Third, I tried to run the SunSpider benchmark tests as well, but perhaps because a lot of other curious people had the same idea on the day Chrome launched, I couldn't get to the site.

Nine things I'd like to see in Chrome

So far we're pretty smitten with Google's Chrome. It's certainly not without its faults, but for version 1.0 of a browser it's pretty sharp. We've compiled a list of 10 things we'd really like to see added or tweaked. Some come from other browsers, and some are just improvements on some of the existing features. Google, we hope you're listening.

1. Profile roaming between multiple browsers. This may be a pipe dream, but if Foxmarks for Firefox has proved anything, syncing up your bookmarks between multiple machines is awesome. Doing the same with passwords, settings, and history would be even better. Considering Google already has a way for your browser to send data back to the mothership, and a hosted Web history service of its own, a little sync using my Google account doesn't seem that hard does it?

2. Better bookmark management. Speaking of bookmarks, the bookmarking system in Chrome is about as basic as it gets. "Stripped-down" might be a better way to describe it. On the outset, it seems as robust as Firefox 3's with a really simple one-click way to save links. Where the system falls apart is the lack of tools for organization, and a complete lack of a back-up tool to save your short (or long) list of favorite sites. Of course, a bookmarks plug-in like Delicious would help sort this out, which brings us to the next yearning...
Chrome's bookmark management is incredibly sparse compared with some of the more mature offerings from browsers like Firefox 3.

3. Plug-ins. Google has acknowledged that plug-ins are on the road map, which is a good thing. Here's how the search giant can totally one-up Mozilla, though: let me install and make changes to extensions without having to restart the browser. Nothing is worse than having 30 tabs open and having to restart, even if it remembers what I had open before. This reminds me...

4. A full-screen mode. I love the minimalism of Chrome, but sometimes I just want those extra 60-90 vertical pixels back. Give me a keyboard shortcut for this too, and I'll be in screen hog heaven.

5. A more customizable interface. The blue is neat, but getting that great deep purple found in incognito mode is enough of a tease to make me want to change the way it looks based on how I'm feeling. Plus, you've taken away the nice special Windows-theme coloring I had when you got rid of the top of the application, so let me choose how I want it to look. Bonus points for a tie-dye mode or something that changes depending on what time of day it is--like your personalized homepage service iGoogle.
Dragging tabs in and out of windows is really cool. Trying to do this with sites you've designated as applications does not work though.

6. A way to drag "applications" back into the main browser. The option to turn a certain site into a self-contained browser window with a stripped-down interface is great. However, the inability to drag it back into an open Chrome browser window is maddening when you're trying to re-open some real estate on the task bar. You can do this with existing tabs and windows, and it works great.

7. A Mac/Linux version. The lack of a Mac client has left the growing percentage of Mac users in a bit of a tizzy. Worse yet, based on Google's track record with some of its other cross-platform software offerings like Google Earth and Google Desktop search, the Mac has fared a little worse with slower release schedules and less features than its PC siblings. Hopefully new features will be rolled out to all the platforms at about the same time.

8. A pop-up blocker that blocks. Clearly Google is trying to shake things up with a pop-up blocker that really should be called a "pop-up relocator," since it not only lets them open but also load. Frankly, this drives me nuts since I have to close them down to get them off the screen. Also if it's really important and something I meant to click, I have to go drag it off from the bottom of the screen.

9. A regular old search box. Yes progress is good and the "omnibar" does a pretty slam-dunk job of getting new searches going, but let's get some of the ambiguity away from that thing and have an option to leave it for URLs only. Also, a separate search box would let me pick from the other multitude of search providers in addition to Google without compromising my screen real estate.
Any you think we missed? Leave them in the comments.

Google Chrome

The new browser from Google has been relished in Beta and can be downloaded from here: http://www.google.com/chrome. But you probably know this already from the hundreds of blogposts from arround the world. I installed this new browser, play around with it and I can't say that I'm a part of either "Just loving it" or "Just hating it" groups.
I see that most people that are against it argue that Chrome does not bring anything new to the world. But what would you like it to bring? It's just a browser, it does not preapre french fries and I'm quite sure it was not indented to do this.
What I like about Chrome:
- The tabs put in the top bar is a big change. After a couple of hours of using this your 17 inch screen will look like a 19 inch one. This is specially good for the new mini-laptops that are in vogue right now
- The element inspector as part of the browser. Yes, they copied Firebug, so what. Bad that you can't edit the page like with Firebug.
- It's a stable system for a beta version. Beside some Ajax features on facebook profile page that do not work, I didn't manage to find any other big bugs

What I dislike at Chrome:
- I'm missing the Status bar (or at least the possibility to make it appear with ALT+F like in IE7). For a windows only software I can't get used living without the status bar
- New "home-page". Yes, I know I can disable it, but what was the main idea behind this? I don't want to open a browser in front of my boss or during a demo and have miniclip.com, youporn or whatever in there. And you can always have this surprise as the page is adjusted automatically.


I will came back with more about this once I'll have more Google Chrome usage hours behind me.