Chrome just got even better

The Google Chrome browser on your machine is about to automatically update itself to fix over 300 bugs, improve it's already lighting fast speed by 1/3, and introduce some new features like form autofill.



Google Chrome Blog: A Speedier Google Chrome for all users

I can't wait to check out the Google Chrome experiments with the new version.

Google OS Announced

"After years of speculation, Google has announced Google Chrome OS, which should be available mid-2010. Initially targeting netbooks, its main selling points are speed, simplicity and security — which kind of implies that the current No.1 OS doesn't deliver in these areas! The Chrome OS will run on both x86 and ARM architectures, uses a Linux kernel with a new windowing system. According to Google, 'For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.' Google says that this new OS is separate from Android, as the latter was designed for mobile phones and set-top boxes, whereas Chrome OS is designed 'for people who spend most of their time on the web.'"

Hat Tip: Slashdot

Google pushes browsers to the limit with it's incredible experiments

On the day that Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 8, Google has unveiled a new site that showcases the Javascript performance of its Chrome browser. Called Chrome Experiments, the site includes 19 extraordinary animated games and widgets that push the browser to its limits. One experiment, called Browser Ball allows you to "throw" a bouncing ball from one browser window to the next. Google Gravity, on the other hand, collapses the normal Google homepage into a pile at the bottom of the screen. However, you can still enter search terms into the box and watch the results drop from the top of the browser window.

Browser Wars! (Cool infographic)

I just found this awesome infographic over on reddit from a someone named BovingdonBug.

It's very cool, even if it doesn't include Chrome (but includes Mozilla, which Chrome is based on).

Windows 7 Upgrading

So I finally finished my upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. It took forever, but I did manage to keep all my applications like Chrome, Picasa, and iTunes, and all the settings are okay.

Bob Cringley argues that the time factor in upgrading to Win7 is intentional:

have you actually done a Windows 7 upgrade? Mine took seven hours! It shouldn’t have to take that long unless part of the goal was simply to discourage upgrading.

I had thought of just doing a clean install and starting from scratch, but I do have some files that I don't keep on my external drive, and some of my app settings take a few minutes to configure. Besides, I kind of wanted an excuse to use an awesome site called Ninite that has a lot of the apps I'd need to reinstall on one page.

My first impressions so far are good. My box wasn't exactly straining to run Vista (strong dual-core 64 bit CPU, decent video, and 8 GB of RAM), but now the boots and system processes are faster. The usability is good, but I haven't spent enough time to see the improvements I've heard others talk about.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed actually. Congrats, MS!

Web Browser Standards Compliance Testing

As anyone that's done web programming can tell you, browser compatibility can be a headache. When I first threw html on the web 10 years ago, trying to get pages to render the same way in IE and Netscape was sometimes a challenge because W3C standards weren't followed consistently. Even now, compliance is an issue. Firefox, IE, Chrome, and Safari all take liberties with some standards, and the result can be a nightmare for developers.

Best practices dictate development in compliance with standards, and then managing any big problems with compatibility if required. Practically, some developers change style sheets for each browser or simply design their sites to look good in the browser most of their readers use and make tweaks when required for other browsers.


Acid2 is a test page developed to highlight the inconsistent adherence to W3C standards:

Acid2 is a test page published and promoted by the Web Standards Project to expose web page rendering flaws in web browsers and other applications that render HTML. It was developed in the spirit of Acid1, a relatively narrow test of compliance with the Cascading Style Sheets 1.0 (CSS1) standard, and was released on April 13, 2005. Like Acid1, an application passes the test if the way it displays the test page matches a reference image.

Acid2 tests aspects of HTML markup, CSS 2.1 styling, PNG images, and data URIs. The Acid2 test page will be displayed correctly in any application that follows the World Wide Web Consortium and Internet Engineering Task Force specifications for these technologies. These specifications are known as web standards because they describe how technologies used on the web are expected to function.

While at the time of Acid2's release no web browser passed the test, Acid2 was designed with Microsoft Internet Explorer particularly in mind. The creators of Acid2 were dismayed that Internet Explorer did not follow web standards and because of this Internet Explorer was prone to display web pages differently from other browsers. When such a discrepancy between browsers is encountered, web developers spend time tweaking their web pages in order to make the pages be displayed correctly in different browsers. Acid2 represented a challenge to Microsoft to bring Internet Explorer in line with web standards, making it easier to design web pages that work as intended in any web browser.


Check out the wikipedia article on Acid2 for some pictures of how the most popular browsers don't adhere to standards, and check out the site itself to see how the browser you're using measures up.

Updated: Firefox Beta Scores 93 On Acid3 Test (via Slashdot)

Google's Browser Launched

Google's own browser has launched. Called "Chrome", this browser has inherited some features from Firefox and Opera, and since it's open source, will be able to contribute code back as it evolves.

Check out Google's comic book describing the browser.

It will be interesting to see if this seduces Firefox and Opera users away, or if it hits Microsoft by enticing IE users to switch before they release IE 8 into production.

If Google manages to draw users away from Microsoft Office applications like Word and Excel and into Google Docs, they'll really be hurting Microsoft where it hurts.

IE has been usurped in Germany

It looks like the browser pundits were right. Firefox has been steadily gaining on IE in Europe, and it's now passed it in Germany.

Fittkau & Maaß

I personally use Chrome, but that's just a blip on the radar.