Tag Archives: Google Chrome
Need a Hangout? Use the Check Extension for Chrome
Posted on 26. Sep, 2011 by Daniel Cawrey. 
5 Comments
I’ve been pondering the merits of Google+ recently, especially in light of the fact that Facebook has made some changes to their interface recently. Note that I said, “changes” and not any improvements. In fact, I think what they have done is more than a nuisance more than anything and serves to suggest that maybe Google+ is a viable alternative social network.
But enough about Facebook. One of the key elements that I have always found intriguing about Google+ is the fact that the idea of Hangouts is something that Facebook is unable to compete with right now. Indeed, the new Google+ Hangout Check will even indicate for you if anyone is actually hanging out.
Maybe I don’t have enough Hangout-centric people in my Circles, but it seems to me that the whole concept has petered out. Although I must say, the Hangout Check extension is actually quite useful because when you are not focused on Google+ you can still have an idea if there are people you want to chat with face to face.
Is Google Hangouts a linchpin of Google+ and the overall Chrome space? It’s too soon to tell. Something suggests to me that many people are still a bit uncomfortable with the idea of videoconferencing with friends, despite the fact that many companies already use some form of it for long distances meetings as well as for hiring people remotely.
Once people do use Hangouts and find that they are not uncomfortable or perhaps embarrassed in any way, however, when they use it maybe there will be potential. But there is going to be that hurdle that needs to be overcome, and it won’t be that easy.
via Chrome Story
AptiQuant Confirms Browser IQ Study A “Hoax”
Posted on 05. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 1 Comments
I still love this picture, though.
In a move that shouldn’t really have surprised anyone, internet firm AptiQuant today went on record telling people that they shouldn’t take their Internet Browser IQ study seriously. Hey, I coulda told you that(oh wait…I did tell you that). The reason, though…the reason they aren’t to be taken seriously might actually surprise you. Turns out..the study was false. The whole thing was a hoax.
An elaborate, ultimately pointless hoax that even managed to fool such publications as CNN, the BBC, NPR, CNET andForbes. I’m not really sure what they were trying to accomplish- this whole fiasco might end with them getting sued-both by a bunch of pissed off IE users(though given that AptiQuant themselves reported that, I’d dispute the legitimacy), and from the actual, legitimate firm from which they *ahem* “borrowed” a rather significant portion of their fake identity.
Report Claims IE Users Are Stupid. IE Users Respond With Lawsuit.
Posted on 02. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 1 Comments
Via http://whiteafro.tumblr.com
Hoo, boy. This one’s ruffling some feathers. According to a report published by “psychometric consulting” firm AptiQuant, chances are good that if you’re using Internet Explorer….you’re kind of a putz. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger- I’m just relaying what the study said. Now, you folks are probably wondering two things- what sort of study it was, and how Chrome ranked, right? Let’s have a look.
IE6 users were at the bottom of the barrel, with those who’d upgraded to IE 8 scoring a little better- but not by much. Firefox, Chrome, and Safari were all pretty evenly matched- with Chrome a little higher than Firefox and Safari a little higher than Chrome. Now, while Internet Explorer users are apparently rather stupid, those who use Chrome frame aren’t- IE with Chrome Frame had the second highest overall IQ score on the list. Camino scored exceptionally high as well, but the browser that took home the gold in this study was Opera.
Yep. According to the study, Opera users are, on average, the most intelligent web denizens around. Of course, that’s assuming this study even holds water. Let’s take a closer look at it, shall we?
Want to Know the Q2 Numbers For G +, Android, and Chrome?
Posted on 29. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 0 Comments
Well, looks like Google’s doing well. Recently, Google CEO Larry Page announced Google’s second quarter earnings, as well as some usage statistics. Fans of Google will be happy to know that pretty much every one of the primary platforms is booming. Let’s take a belated look at what Larry shared with us, shall we?
Earnings:
Google’s earnings have gone up 32% from last year, netting Google around $9.03 billion dollars in gross revenue, with 6.23 of that being generated from Google-owned sites. Though Page asserted that search and advertising are still Google’s core businesses, products like Chrome, Youtube, and Google + are part of a long term goal and should generate “huge new business” for the company, which is quickly moving from a search-engine giant to a multimedia empire. Think that’s a hyperbolic statement? Take a look at some of the other stats Page has released.
Google +:
True to Paul Allen’s prediction, Larry announced on the earnings call that Google+ had broken the ten million user mark, with one billion items shared each day, and Google’s +1 button being clicked up to 2.3 billion times a day. And just think- if Mr. Allen was right about Google + having ten million users on Thursday, might he also be right in predicting that it’s ballooned to over twenty million by now?
Chances are good that he is.
Android:
Android now has 550,000 devices activated each day, with one hundred sixty million devices(and over four hundred unique models) worldwide. Something tells me Apple might be getting a bit nervous about this one.
Chrome:
And here’s the news you’ve all been waiting for. As of Thursday, Chrome has one hundred sixty million users- and they’re still going strong. Unless Microsoft or Mozilla manages to pull out some incredible feature that leaves Chrome in the dust, something tells me that it might just be the dominant browser on the market in a few years time.
And I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.
via All Geek
Chrome Weekly Release Roundup- July 18-22, 2011
Posted on 24. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 1 Comments
Bit of a slow week this time around- it appears I was rather mistaken when I estimated we’d be seeing some major updates. We’ll actually be seeing a major update to the stable channel next week. For now…I don’t hvave all that much for you guys. Aside from the Canary channel (which updates every day, regardless) the only changes we saw were to the Beta channel and the Dev channel- and even then, there was nothing particularly major. Chrome’s Beta channel’s gone from 13.0.782.55/13.0.782.56 to 13.0.782.99 on all platforms. The Beta channel for Chromebooks also received pretty much the same upgrade, going to 13.0.782.99(Platform version 587.80). Finally, the Dev Channel’s been updated to 14.0.825.0 from 14.0.814.0. Safe to say that’s the largest update in the list, and it brings a number of changes to WebKit with it.
Firefox Loses Firebug’s Lead Programmer To Chrome
Posted on 19. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 6 Comments
It’s always a bad sign for a platform when developers start jumping ship. Seems like that might be just what’s happening with Firefox. See, for years, there was this extension known as Firebug. If you’re a web developer or programmer, you’ve probably at least heard of the plugin. Apparently, it’s one of the best out there; allowing inspection of HTML elements, real-time modification of style and layout, analysis of network usage and performance; and offering a powerful Javascript debugger. All in all, it was a rather excellent tool, and kept a lot of people onboard the Firefox boat.
Chrome Weekly Update Roundup- July 11-15, 2011
Posted on 17. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 3 Comments
Looks like the folks at Google have been busy. The Developer Channel updated to 14.0.814.0, Beta is now at version 13.0.782.55(Windows/Mac/Chrome)/13.0.782.56; and the Stable Channel’s current build is now 12.0.742.122(Windows/Mac/Chrome)/12.0.742.124(Linux). The Chrome OS Stable channel also saw an update, going from R12 to0.12.433.231 R12 release 0.12.433.257. It’s been a pretty big week for the Developer channel, and an even bigger week for Adobe Flash- every channel that’s been updated-with the exception of the Developer channel- got itself a shiny new Flash player.
Mostly pretty minor updates- bugfixes and such- but still worth taking a look at. Let’s start with the browser.
Searching For Chrome on Bing Could Lead To Malware
Posted on 13. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 1 Comments
Bing users who are fans of Chrome should exercise caution in their searches. Turns out a few rather enterprising malware distributors have purchased sponsored links on Microsoft’s search engine. For those of you who don’t know, sponsored links are those that appear at the top of the page when a search engine displays search results for you. Said results are usually legitimate, and carry little to no risk of containing security threats. You’d think that whoever was in charge of the search engine might, I don’t know…screen the results, particularly with sponsored links. I don’t know about you, but if someone paid me to host a link at the top of a search engine I was running, I’d make damned sure that link was safe for my users before allowing it to be posted.
Truthfully, I’d say that something like this was allowed to get through reflects rather poorly on whoever’s in charge of Bing. To that end, I’m not sure whether this is a bad thing or a good thing for Google. Could be good, because it might push a few users away from Bing. On the other hand, it could be bad, because of the means by which the malware infects one’s system.
Google Chrome Tops 20% Of Global Market Share
Posted on 12. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 0 Comments
Chrome’s growing larger by the day, it seems. According to a web analytics company known as Statcounter, who collected the data from a sample exceeding 15 billion pageviews per month; Google’s increasingly popular web browser grew to encompass 20.7 percent of the global browser market this past month. Does that not seem like a lot? Consider the fact that just two years ago, the then-fledgling browser had a measly 2.8 percent. Kinda puts it into perspective a touch, doesn’t it?
That isn’t all there is to the story, either. Not only has Chrome been gaining strength; it’s been doing so at the expense of both its chief competitors. Microsoft Internet Explorer dropped from 59 percent of the market to 44 percent, while Mozilla Firefox dropped from 30 percent to 28 percent. Granted, both Mozilla and Microsoft have both got a bigger piece of the pie than Google at the moment, but that might not last much longer, if the current trends are anything to go by- even with both companies stepping up their game. Chrome’s still got a ways to go, but another couple years like this past one and it’ll hold dominance over the browser market.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Surplus For Chrome Lets You Access Google+ Everywhere
Posted on 08. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 7 Comments
I did say something like this was coming very soon. Granted, it’s not an official extension or update from Google, but just the same, it’s something to tide users over until such an extension releases. Hey, I’m still standing firm in my belief that it will. Call me crazy, but I think integrating + into Chrome is something Google’s definitely going to be looking into as we draw ever nearer to the inevitable Google + launch date.
Anyway, there’s now a Chrome extension that allows you to stay connected to Google + anywhere on the net. You can share with your circles, respond to posts made by friends, switch between multiple Google accounts and set up notification sounds and desktop notifications. Pretty cool, right? Surplus was created by the rather talented young Antimatter Fifteen. Kid’s only sixteen years old, and already he’s got a pretty damned impressive portfolio of apps. Take a look at this excerpt from his Google + page:
I’ve written several chrome extensions including Surplus, Cloud Save, CrOS Save, drag2up, Offline Dictionary, stick2, the non functional cross platform Music Beta upload app MusicAlpha, and an Offline Wikipedia dump reader. I made Ajax Animator, a web based animation authoring tool, VectorEditor, a Raphael-based vector graphics tool, and the Khan Academy scratchpad.
Yikes. I get the feeling he might just have a bright future ahead of him designing apps and extensions. At the very least, he’s got some potential. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Let’s take another look at Surplus. After all, that’s what we’re all here for, right? Now, while this extension’s pretty nifty, it does have one minor design flaw. Emphasis on the word ‘minor’ here.
See, for link sharing, Surplus doesn’t pull the link directly from the page you’re on. Granted, you can fix the problem with a simple copy+paste; but just the same, it would have been a nice functionality to add on. Oh, one more thing- depending on what build of Chrome you’re using, Surplus apparently has the potential to be something of a CPU hog, according to this user review on the extension page:
As soon as I enable the extension, every tab I have open starts using 3-10% CPU, even if I then disable the extension. I have to shut down Chrome completely and restart it to get the tabs to stop hogging the CPU. I’m using 14.0.803.0 dev-m.
So…basically, if you’re using that particular build of Chrome, you should probably be careful. Otherwise, this is one extension that Google + users should definitely at least try. You can grab it here.
Update: Seems there’s a few more problems with the extension. A couple more users are reporting rather considerable memory leaks, and I myself have noticed a rather…well, bizarre glitch. For some reason, the extension now brings up Google Images in the dropdown menu, almost cropping out the functional features. I’m currently using the latest dev build (Yeah, I know, I know, I told you guys to exercise caution when using this app with that build); no word yet if these problems also occur in the Stable and Beta releases. I’ve contacted Antimatter about the issue, I’ll keep you guys posted when I Get a response.
Via Lifehacker
First Impressions: Google+
Posted on 05. Jul, 2011 by Julian West. 1 Comments
Tired of Facebook? You are not alone: according to a recent survey, Facebook is the 10th most hated company in America. Facebook’s membership is decreasing as well.
Perhaps Google+ is arriving just in the nick of time.
Andy Hertzfeld, one of the designers of the first Mac and hired by Google to work on Google+’s Circles explains “Everything on the Web can be improved by knowledge of your social connections, so Google+ is an effort to…add a social layer to Google, to YouTube, to Google Search, to every Google property.”
What is the nature of this improvement exactly? Personally, I don’t want “social” to add bloat to my experience of the web. No Farmville for me, thank you very much. (Though I understand that social gaming will be a feature that will be added later.) Google cuts the bloat and aims for intuitive and full social integration with Google services.
I can access all my Google services within the Google+ interface via the black bar at the top of the page. Imagine if your whole photo library was just a couple of clicks away from sharing with your friends and family? That’s what you get with Google+. The all important Google search also received some social integration as well. Just do your regular searching on the Google+ homepage, and if you find something you’d like to share, click “share” and you have the choice of which of your circles to share your particular article of interest.
People in my circle who aren’t on Google+ but in my gmail contacts list can be notified of my update stream via email if I add them to one of my circles. A very nice touch and personally very helpful in keeping touch with some of my family. This is also a clever way for Google to promote the service to others as well.
Perhaps the coolest feature that Google+ offers is “Hangouts.” This is the feature which isn’t offered by any other “social network.” This allows for video chatting with multiple people in your circles. Just invite people from your circle of friends and in your “stream” there will be a button in which those invited people will be able to join you. I tried it out with Daniel and was delighted how well it worked on my Cr-48. Crystal clear and smooth.
Do you think that Google+ will catch on?
I believe so.
Let’s not forget, it took years for Facebook to become the social behemoth it is. Google+ may take some time to catch on and chip away at Facebooks’s dominance. Google isn’t exactly starting from scratch. There are millions already using Google services and Google+ is an extension of them and the features that Google+ sports has the potential to inspire them to use their Google services more exclusively.
Mozilla Claims Enterprise Users Aren’t Important. Google Disagrees.
Posted on 30. Jun, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 5 Comments
Seems like Mozilla’s alienated businesses and IT administrators the world over, and inadvertently left a huge opening for Google to step in with Chrome. This week, Aza Dotzler, one of Mozilla’s executives, made a rather pigheaded remark regarding Mozilla’s opinion of the business community, and their complaints about the Firefox Web Browser. Long story short, he made a complete and utter ass of himself, and of the company he’s supposed to represent.
