Google Chrome News & Articles

Google (news, site) keeps packing in new features to its ever-evolving browser in the battle to convert users. The latest addition helps make Google Voice an essential for the desktop generation. 

It seems that Google Chrome is (still) slowly but surely moving in the frills direction. This spring Google announced the simple browser's first official extensions, and then in September they removed the developer flag, opening up the doors for higher volume participation. 

This week it was announced on Google's blog that the Chromium team is officially accepting submissions from third-party developers. Big G provides information for writing an extension here, and once it's ready to go all a developer has to do is upload a zip file of the code and an icon for easy recognition. Descriptive information in the form of text and screenshots or YouTube videos is also welcome. 

Once an extension is uploaded, Google takes care of packaging and signing, and if a developer wants to update their baby, all it requires is a new file uploaded to the gallery. Additionally, over the next few days Google plans to open up the gallery to a select group of testers in order to provide insights and bug reports. 

And all of this is happening before the beta launch in hopes that things will be extra polished for the real release. 

"We can't wait to share all the great extensions that you'll submit with all of Google Chrome's users," writes Lei Zhing of Google Chrome. And honestly? We're pretty curious ourselves. Let us know what you'd like cooked up, or check out what people are already asking for here.

So, you know how almost every time we talk about Google Chrome we make sure to mention its simplicity and lack of bloating extras? Well, you can forget all that because Google recently announced that future development builds of the speedy browser will have extension support flicked on by default.

Firefox? We think this might mean more competition for you.
 

Microsoft owns the operating system market with its many flavours of Windows. Only Apple OS has attempted to break that monopoly with only marginal success. As a result Apple has recognized Microsoft’s predominance in creating dual-boot MacBooks that operate both Apple and Windows operating systems.

It seems like it was only yesterday when Google graced us with Chrome and the browser world subsequently went bananas, doesn’t it? That’s probably because it was only 8 months ago. Now, back for round 2 is our dear old uncle Google with a newer, faster release that includes over 300 bug fixes and a 30% faster browsing experience thanks to a new WebKit and Javascript update.

Now an official part of the stable channel, users can also expect the following, more apparent features from Chrome:

Improved New Tab Page: Though it was arguably one of the coolest features of Chrome’s initial release, a lot of users found the the thumbnails on the home page too revealing. Now you can browse without fear of the person nearest you finding out that you frequent Perez Hilton’s gossip blog by clicking the new Remove Thumbnails link.

Full Screen Mode: We missed you, F11 key. Now use every single pixel on your screen by either hitting F11 or selecting the Full Screen Mode option in the Tools menu.

Form Autofill: Don't stress about having to enter your information into the same form fields over and over again. Chrome now remembers it. And, if at any time you wish to clear out your info, you can do so in the Tools menu.

If you’re already using the browser, you’ll be automatically updated to the new version shortly. If you’ve just been convinced to try it, we don't blame you. You can get started here. Need more convincing? Check out a video of all the new features here. 

Early on Tuesday, Apple slapped an unannounced release of Safari 4 Beta on the table, and the entire Internet subsequently went bananas.

We’ve taken it for a test drive and right off the cuff it feels natural to compare Safari’s upgrades to the features in Google Chrome. In fact, even after sleeping on it, it still feels that way.

Staying true to their reputation for paying extra attention to miniscule details however, Apple has somehow managed to take almost all of Chrome’s popular perks and make them more intuitive. Of course, that’s in addition to Apple’s own innovations, including the integration of an iTunes-like interface. As a mix of both fresher, more popular elements and good ol’ Apple standbys, the new release has got hard core Safari fans shedding tears of joy—and sorrow.

More browser news. Nothing about war or carnage, though. OK, maybe a little. Ben Goodger, whose internet celebrity is attributed to being one of the masterminds behind Google Chrome, gave a presentation about the browser at the Webstock conference this week.

After what started as a flurry of freakouts over security issues and a general concern over whether or not ‘Google’ was just a code name for CIA, the simple browser has settled into a cloud of overall contentment. Now that it’s doing quite well for itself, let’s talk about some of the reasoning behind its creation.

Google Chrome is a good browser. A speedy, delightful little browser. Sure, the themes and fancy applications that Mozilla offers aren’t there, but the crash rate is much lower, the dynamic tabs are sweet and you’re warned when you may be visiting a harmful website. In fact, perhaps it’s the no-frills approach that has kept Chrome as functional as it is.

Whatever the case, no-frills is still no-frills, and in an era of endless options there will always be those that try to add a little “flava” to the things that lack it. As a result, add-ons to Chrome are available via browser bookmarklets. Because of popular demand, you can now even employ them in order to manage two new ways to work with RSS feeds.

And the browser wars continue. As a recent reaction to all the privacy issues surrounding Google Chrome, a German software company SRWare has released a free alternative called Iron.

Aside from the obvious metallic element similarity, Iron is also based on the Chromium source code, with the controversial bits removed.

Last time we covered Skyfire, those who wanted to browse the Internet on their phones in the same way as on their PCs had to sign up on a waiting list.

Well, now you can kick that wait time to the curb, because Skyfire has upped its game and left private beta. It is now available to anyone in the U.S. with a phone running on Windows Mobile, and it’s still absolutely free.

One of Skyfire’s new features — Super Bar — acts a lot like Google Chrome’s Omnibox with its auto-suggest and search capability in one address bar.