Tag Archives: Chrome
Chrome helps Linux pt. 2: Cloud Graphics
Posted on 25. Aug, 2011 by Julian West. 
0 Comments
With Chrome, Google has been at the forefront of enhancing the capabilities of the browser and enhancing the powers of the browser. One of these areas is GPU Accelerated Drawing. Traditionally, the CPU was the only computer hardware which was utilized to render graphics in a browser, which resulted in limitations with regard to the browser’s graphics rendering. With GPU Accelerated Drawing, however, the browser is utilizing the thin client’s GPU in rendering browser graphics, greatly boasting the browser’s rendering power.
Such advances in browser technology also has benefits for Linux.
Linux doesn’t have the best reputation with regards to graphics, mainly due to the fact that that not all hardware manufacturers make Linux compatible drivers for their graphics cards and it can take considerable time before open-source drivers for those graphics cards are available. Due to its cross platform nature, OpenGL ES is a clear path for Linux to obtain video support from major chip makers and sidestep these driver issues since OpenGL standardizes the rendering API for the browser regardless of the platform. GPU Accelerated Drawing will eventually enable the browser’s graphics performance to be at a level expected from today’s demanding users.
WebGL has a ways to go before it can compete with the video performance your traditional legacy system offers; the technology still is in its beginning stages. I tried GPU Acceleration in “about:flags” on my Cr-48, and it actually slowed down the graphics performance. I tested on the Asteroids HTML5 Canvas 2D Rendering and JavaScript Benchmark experiment, and it went from a benchmark score of initially 417, when the GPU Acceleration flag was disabled to 183 when GPU Acceleration was enabled. I’m not the only one who experienced the slow down.
I remain optimistic however. WebGL technology and the like are sure to advance due to the superior development process of Open Source. It’s just a matter of time. Consider the below statement from Linus Torvalds:
“[Open Source] is superior because it’s a lot more fun and because it makes cooperation much easier (no silly NDA’s or artificial barriers to innovation like in a proprietary setting), and I think Open Source is the right thing to do the same way I believe science is better than alchemy. Like science, Open Source allows people to build on a solid base of previous knowledge, without some silly hiding. [Y]ou can obviously never do as well in a closed environment as you can with open scientific methods.”
In a ZDnet article dated June 26, 2008, an exec from the Linux Foundation is quoted as saying “The future of cloud computing and Web 2.0 application development will be built on Linux and open source.” Consider how far cloud computing has come since then. Today, we can even play Angry Birds in the browser!
What are your views on Linux, Chrome, and the advances of cloud computing? Are you optimistic?
What Is Boot 2 Gecko? A Look At Mozilla’s Chrome-esque Cloud OS
Posted on 08. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 0 Comments
Mozilla’s been having a pretty rough time lately. Their browser, Firefox; started out in a pretty sweet spot- as an excellent alternative to Internet Explorer. Now, it seems as though their browser is the one people are seeking an alternative to- and that alternative just happens to be Google Chrome. It’s no secret that both Firefox and IE have been losing market share to Chrome lately- and if they keep going at the rate they’re going, Chrome could very well end up as the dominant browser in the market.
Recently, Google nixed Firefox’s Google Bar. While versions that already had the bar designed for them still kept the addon, any version beyond 5 no longer offered it. Naturally, there were a lot of fans of the browser who were rather unhappy with Google’s decision- and a great many people who felt that a move like this only underscored that Google no longer saw Mozilla as an ally; but an enemy instead. I won’t go into the details of the Google bar’s demise- because honestly, they’re irrelevant to us. What we are going to focus on is an announcement that Mozilla made shortly after Google officially cut support for the Firefox addon.
Apparently, Mozilla is working on a web-based operating system.
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Firefox Gets A Massive Speed Boost; I’m Still Sticking With Chrome.
Posted on 26. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 5 Comments
So, Firefox 8 has released in the Nightly Channel-basically, it’s Mozilla’s answer to Chrome’s Canary channel, featuring more or less daily releases of new and untested browser builds. Apparently, 8 is fast. Very fast. Estimates have set the speed increase at somewhere around 20% faster than Firefox 5- which most people probably aren’t still using, anyway. Apparently, the speed is now on par with Chrome 14. Furthermore, Mozilla’s also significantly reduced the memory footprint of Firefox 7. Supposedly, that’s a rather considerable reduction, given that Firefox 7 also reduced the memory footprint of previous versions. A lot of folks are rather excited about this update. As for me? Not particularly. I’ll stick with Chrome, thanks- though perhaps I should explain why I’m taking this stance.
First, let’s look at what Mozilla’s brought to the table with their new browser, thus far.
New Features of Firefox 8
The most touted new feature of Firefox 8 is, quite naturally, the increase in speed. According to Business Insider, Firefox 8 features a 10% reduction in startup and operations time from Firefox 7, in addition to a 15% increase in benchmark results over FF 5 and a 20% increase in WebGL performance. One of the ways they’ve done this is by adding a piece of software known as Azure. It’s Firefox’s new unified graphics API, and I’ve got to admit, they did a pretty good job with this one. Not only does it leave their old API eating its dust, but it can also be used across all platforms.
See, before Azure, Firefox utilized a tool known as Cairo, in addition to Direct2D(or Quartz on OSX); for graphics rendering. It acts as something of a “go between” for Firefox and the host OS’s 2D rendering libraries. Azure eliminates the middlemen- allowing Firefox to write directly to Direct3D and OpenGL. Basically, what this means is that with Azure; instead of having to utilize two intermediary programs, Firefox simply goes straight to the program it’s writing to. End result; a massive increase in speed and performance. The gain’s around 20% (seems to be the magic number today) on Windows. No word on how high it is on OS X.
As well, Mozilla’s done some tweaking with 3D WebGL to improve performance and increase security. Now, there’s also a few technical additions Mozilla’s planning to make to its browser. More will likely be forthcoming, but for the time being…the majority of them are features that have already been present in Google Chrome for quite some time. You can go over and take a look at Mozilla’s Firefox 8 release Wiki, and I’m sure you’ll agree- nothing they’re adding is particularly exciting or eye catching.
Ultimately, even though Firefox 8 is better than its predecessors in virtually every way, it still falls short of Google Chrome.
Why Chrome Is Still Better
There are a few reasons why I’m going to be sticking with Chrome, and ignoring this Firefox update. First off, let’s look at browser speed. Quite frankly “just as fast as Chrome” isn’t going to cut it. See, the problem with Chrome as a competitor is that it’s developed by the owner of one of the most powerful, widely used search engines in the world. And with Google’s introduction of features such as instant pages, well…Chrome still feels faster, even if the two browsers are the same speed. Chrome pre-renders and preloads websites. Firefox doesn’t. No matter how fast they make Firefox, Chrome will still have that advantage.
And the fact is, even if Mozilla somehow did manage to make their browser feel as fast as Chrome…that still wouldn’t be good enough. I like Chrome. I like the apps and extensions. I like its integration with Google’s various tools and services. I like the feel of it. And I guarantee, a lot of people who use Chrome will be echoing the same sentiments. If Mozilla’s going to lure Chrome users away from their browser, they’re going to need to do a hell of a lot more than bring Firefox’s performance up to snuff with Chrome. They need to do more than add a plethora of new features to their browser already present in Google Chrome. Long story short, until they can clearly prove that Firefox is clearly better than Google Chrome, I know which browser I’m using.
I’ll give you a hint- it’s not Firefox.
via Business Insider
Chrome OS Alternatives to Netflix – What’s Available?
Posted on 25. Jul, 2011 by Julian West. 2 Comments
The slogan for the Chromebook is “Ready When You Are.” The truth of the matter is that’s only partly true because services many find essential are not being offered yet. Ironically, one of these services is one of the biggest sources of web traffic in North America, accounting for 24.71 percent of aggregated traffic is not accessible via Chrome OS. The cloud app I speak of, of course, is Netflix. Netflix is one of those services that validates the cloud because it allows the user access to thousands of movies and television shows (about 12,000 to choose from) via the Internet and can make you wonder whether you need a dvd collection at all.
Yet, Chrome OS — the ultimate cloud operating system — is currently unable stream Netflix movies. It’s taking time for Netflix to migrate to the HTML5 technology. Not a small feat considering the amount of movies they are streaming. The Netflix plug-in is in the Development Channel for Chrome OS, so it is only a matter of time that it will be available. But the fact is that it isn’t working yet.
What is a Chromie supposed to do in the mean time? You may be a bit disillusioned by the change Netflix’s pricing plans as well. Such questions may lead one to ask: what are the alternatives?
Well, the ones that come to my mind are Hulu, Amazon Prime, and YouTube. All of these services can be used quite easily in Chrome OS and that shinny, new Chromebooks.
Hulu is mainly for television shows, though if you get Hulu Prime, you get access to the Criterion Library. Many excellent films are to be had here for the film connoisseur but more mainstream movies are not in Hulu’s offerings. So if you want the latest Adam Sandler film, you are out of luck.
There is also YouTube. YouTube has been working hard to extend its digital offerings and offer commercially produced movies as well as user content that has come synonymous with the brand. It offers 3,000 movies for rent, some of them at no cost. The issue I see in this service is that the movies you are most likely are going to want to watch are rentals. A Netflix streaming subscription is $8 a month. That would be only two rentals on YouTube.
Last, but not least is Amazon Prime. If you are a big Amazon shopper, this may be a no brainer for you because you get free 2-day shipping as a member of Amazon Prime. The “Prime” catalog, while it has many movies and television shows to stream, is not as extensive as Netflix. Amazon has around 5,000 movies for streaming, however 1,668 of them offered for free on-demand streaming for Amazon Prime members. Not a very high number if you ask me.
Chrome OS Brings A Task Manager Into The Browser
Posted on 29. Jun, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 4 Comments
It’s no secret that Google’s trying to make a completely browser-centric computing experience with their Chrome OS- and, to a lesser extent, the Chrome browser. They’ve just taken a rather considerable stride towards accomplishing that, by incorporating a task manager user interface. Now, while it’s pretty clear what the task manager would be used for in the Chrome OS, some of you are likely wondering just what sort of purpose it might have within the Chrome browser. Have a look. It pretty much does what you’d expect of a task manager- except it only operates within Chrome. Basically, it lets you view processes and applications running within the browser, and pick and choose which ones to terminate. Pretty convenient, and makes it a lot easier to track down a misbehaving plugin or app and get rid of it.
Unfortunately, this function isn’t live in Chrome just yet. It’s going to be coming fairly soon-probably in the next release/update- but for the time being, it’s only live in Chromium. If you want to give the task manager a try and don’t want to wait, you’ll need to download the latest version. There, it’s currently only available via command switch. Once you’ve got it enabled, you can visit chrome://taskmanager to view it.
via Chrome Story
Microsoft Office To Offer Support For Chrome
Posted on 24. May, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 15 Comments
This June, Microsoft is releasing its first service pack for Microsoft Office 2010. With this update, Microsoft Office will for the first time offer support for Google Chrome, allowing Chrome to run the suite’s online applications using SharePoint 2010. Originally, Microsoft had limited support to IE, Firefox and Safari. There wasn’t really any reason given for this, and with a little tweaking and the use of Skydrive, the apps ran just fine within Chrome. So why the sudden change of heart?
Apparently, they’re not telling. They haven’t said anything about why they didn’t originally include support or why they’ve decided to add it now.
The former could have something to do with the rivalry between the two companies. For the past year or so, they’ve been slinging mud at one another over their online applications. Microsoft recognizes that Chrome is a rival to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer- and a very significant one at that. The battle kicked off in May 2010 when Google’s Enterprise product management director Matthew Glotzbach encouraged users and companies to forget about upgrading to Office 2010 and instead add Google Docs, claiming “it makes Office 2003 and 2007 better”.
In addition to adding support for Chrome, Microsoft is including the usual array of security and hotfix patches, printing support for the Word webapp, support for IE9 and the ability to insert charts into the Excel app. Other than these tidbits Microsoft hasn’t really given us a whole lot of information on what else these new features and improvements are going to entail, so I suppose we’re just going to have to wait and see. All they’ve told us on the matter is that users can now do things that they were unable to do before. Yeah…kind of vague, isn’t it?
Building a Chrome OS PC Yourself: Is It Worth The Effort?
Posted on 19. May, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 2 Comments
We can all agree that Chrome OS is a rather awesome, unique idea- perhaps even revolutionary. We can probably also agree that the concept behind the Chromebooks is a pretty awesome one. I mean, who doesn’t want to worry about data being lost, right? We can also collectively nod our heads at the fact that this news has been causing quite a few waves in the PC industry. One thing we might not be able to agree on though is this: while Google Chrome sounds like an awesome OS to pre-load onto a computer, is it a viable OS around which to build your own system upon?
Now, a lot of you will probably point to Chromium and say “Well…yeah, it does.” Thing is, Chromium and Chrome are two different operating systems. While both work on similar principles- namely, cloud computing- and both are derived the same source code, Chromium is completely open source- a whole different ballgame from Chrome OS.
Now, in order to determine whether a custom Chrome machine is a viable option, I’m going to have to look at several key factors. These are, in no particular order, hardware requirements, hardware optimization, and cost effectiveness. Now, if you’re particularly astute (or just a huge tech head), you’ve already realized that these three are very much interrelated to one another- hardware optimization influences cost effectiveness and software optimization and so on. Just the same, these are the three deciding factors in whether or not this OS is suitable as a build platform.
Hardware Requirements
What are the most basic, bare bones requirements of a Chrome machine? What sort of stresses does Chrome OS put on the hardware involved? If Chromebooks are anything to judge this by, the OS doesn’t really put any terrible strain on the system. To be safe, we’ll set the lowest benchmark for the system at 2 GB of RAM and at most, a 1.7 GHz dual core processor. Minimum processer benchmark, I’d say somewhere around 1.4 GHz. Hard drive space, we’ll set at 8-16 GB minimum.
Rather low end as far as custom builds go, and pretty easy to come by. Not particularly expensive too. So, as far as base hardware requirements, Google’s Chrome OS is looking like a good choice. Also, your system pretty much has to support OpenGL. That’s a given. Ah, but there are other things to consider.
Optimization/Other Requirements.
Here’s the deciding factor. If Google’s OS requires specialized hardware to run, building a rig on it will either be entirely pointless, or so much trouble that it’s not worth the effort. Now, the trouble here is that…we don’t actually know a whole lot about what sort of optimization might be necessary to run Chrome. While we can infer from the Chromebooks that it’s not a horrendously memory-intensive OS, there’s really no way of telling whether or not the hardware’s been modified or optimized in some way to run with Chrome.
See, the problem here is that we don’t really have all the information on the Chrome OS yet. There’s no real word on how the software is optimized, the highest grade system that could feasibly be run to its fullest extent, whether or not the OS requires special or modified pieces of hardware to properly run.The information simply isn’t there. I’ve done a bit of research about the OS, but the problem is, nobody seems to know the details. There are so many conflicting reports; it’s hard to tell what’s true and what isn’t.
I’ve heard people say that Chrome OS will only run with hardware that’s specifically optimized and manufactured to run Chrome. Others have said that it’ll run on pretty much any system. I’ve heard people say that if you’re running Chrome OS, you need a solid state drive on which to boot it. Others have retorted that it’s merely recommended that you have it.
There’s only one thing we know for certain. Fortunately, it’s all we really need to know to render our verdict here.
Pretty much the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that Google’s Chrome OS isn’t going to be intended for desktop PCs- at least, not at first. It’s optimized for x86 and ARM-based systems. So, that’s a point against its viability as a custom rig platform right there. I mean, seriously, have you ever tried building a laptop computer from scratch? Second question, how many gray hairs did you have after such an experience? If Google’s new OS is optimized for laptop computers they are probably saying what they mean.
The Chrome and Chrome OS Tags
Posted on 30. Nov, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
Many of you have asked for it, so we’ve given what the people want. Now there are categories on the site tagging as to whether a post is based on Chrome or Chrome OS. We hope that you like it. Many pieces are based on Chrome, while quite a few are based on Chrome OS. At least now you’ll know what you’re dealing with when you click on a category or post title.
Of course, there are still some that straddle the line or are based completely on Google themselves. Those will likely not have either of these two tags.
Also, don’t forget to let us know about anything you’d like to see from this site. Seriously. We actually read and reply. Ask anyone.
StatCounter: Chrome Increases While Competition Slips, Slightly
Posted on 01. Nov, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
It’s a new month, and StatCounter has the data on browser usage statistics for the past month. Not surprisingly, Chrome has gained while Firefox and Internet Explore have slipped, although the change is very slight. Here’s a look at the rankings in graph form. Internet Explorer comes in on top with 49.21%, Firefox in second with 31.24% and Chrome with 12.39%. Last month Chrome was at 11.54%.
Is there any hope for Internet Explorer? It sounds like the new version has not been as popular as Microsoft had hoped. I also wonder how many browser enthusiasts are now switching to Chrome now that it has so many more features than it did just six months ago.
Chrome Webapps Are Nothing Without, Well, the Web
Posted on 30. Oct, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
I’ve tried to emphasize in the past the importance of internet connectivity in making sure that the web generation of computer products such as Chrome OS devices are a success. Because of this I’ve done a bit of coverage on wireless companies and how they play an important role.
Despite some of the conventional thinking out there that wireless operators are just “dumb pipes”, the reality is that they play an important role in the future of the mobile internet. No other companies out there have the infrastructure for us to connect to the web no matter where it is that we are.
Graph: More Users Prefer Chrome Than Firefox on Techmeme
Posted on 12. Oct, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
Technically savvy users are increasingly making the decision to use Chrome over Firefox as this graph from Business Insider using Techmeme data suggests.
Should Mozilla be concerned?
Logitech Google TV Ad: Part 5
Posted on 22. Sep, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
More Google TV weirdness.
