chrome browser

Google Chrome is a strong contender in the raging browser wars, but it's not without its critics. Concerns have been raised about several aspects of Chrome that could potentially compromise user privacy. SRWare Iron Portable is a browser that's based on the Chromium source code and is nearly identical to Chrome, but it addresses several of these privacy concerns.

Visually, SRWare Iron Portable is virtually indistinguishable from Chrome, and it functions just as Chrome does; it's sleek and speedy. We were unable to install Chrome extensions in Iron Portable, but this seems to be related to the … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Google expects Chrome OS to be a success. But it's chosen its terms for success very carefully.

Google shares with many of its rivals a natural, reasonable ambition to measure success by market penetration. This week at the Google I/O conference here, the company was quick to tout that there have been 100 million activations of Android devices, that 310 different Android devices have gone on sale so far, and that Android users have downloaded 4.5 billion apps to date.

Though data-obsessed Google doubtless will count how many Chromebooks are sold, that isn't the measurement … Read more

When Chrome got its start, the browser was svelte and fast-loading if limited.

Now, it's got plenty of features, but two years later, it's nearly three times bigger. And Google, deciding that's not a good thing, has set up a task force to curtail Chrome bloat.

The task force is "aggressively looking at options to bring down the size of Chrome distribution binaries," said Anthony Laforge, Chrome technical program manager, in a mailing list message this month. Binary files are the ones computers understand; they're created from human-comprehensible source code.

With broadband connections, large … Read more

Google gave its browser a new logo yesterday, a design that drops the bubbly 3D look for a flatter, more geometric look.

The new design is no surprise: an all-blue version of the new logo showed up for Chromium, the open-source foundation of Chrome, a week ago.

It's just a cosmetic change, of course, but people often care about such skin-deep matters. That's why the ability to reskin Chrome and Firefox were deemed important features even if they don't do much for loading Web pages faster or enabling new Web applications.

In a statement, here's how … Read more

European advertisers fear they will face a huge new obstacle this May when the European Union's Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive takes effect. The so-called Cookie Directive will require that users explicitly allow Web sites to leave cookies and other data on their machines, according to Raul Mendez on ChiefPrivacyOfficers.com.

It's unclear whether the opt-in requirement will be satisfied by the browser's setting that allows first- and third-party cookies. This uncertainty hasn't prevented some pundits from predicting the end of the world for the European advertising industry, as reported by TechCrunch Europe's Mike Butcher.… Read more

Judging by a recent source code change, it seems likely Google's Chrome browser will sport a new logo that looks less like the offspring of an electronic Simon memory game and a robotic Roomba floor cleaner.

The keen Chrome-observing eyes of Peter Beverloo spotted a new logo that arrived today for Chromium, the open-source underpinnings of Google's closed-source Chrome browser. The new logo still complies with the unwritten rule that browser logos must be circular but looks more like an abstract geometric pattern than the shiny happy plasticky objet d'art that is the current Chrome logo. Like … Read more

Mozilla and Microsoft have been racing to see which will be the first to release a production-quality browser with hardware-accelerated graphics, but at the current rate, it could be Google's Chrome 9 that crosses the finish line first.

Google likely will be issuing Chrome 9 in beta form soon. It had been planned for Tuesday, but Anthony LaForge, a Chrome technical program manager, pushed it back. "The crash rate [of] 400 crashes per million page loads on the browser is simply too high," he said in a mailing list message

Hardware acceleration isn't a simple either-or … Read more

Amazon is looking to attract more readers and sellers of e-books with its improved Kindle for the Web.

Demonstrated yesterday at Google's Chrome event, Amazon's Kindle for the Web will let users buy and read full Kindle e-books directly from their browsers with no special download or installation required. The new version of the application will be available early next year.

Users will also have a lot of choice over where they can buy their Kindle books. Online retailers, publishers, authors, and bloggers will be able to offer Kindle books through their own sites, according to Amazon. Web … Read more

The Google Chrome Web Store, which went live today, is a big gift to Web developers: it's a marketplace, like Apple's iOS App Store and Google's Android Market, that lets developers put their apps in a place where users and buyers are likely to be looking for them. It also collects money on developers' behalves.

Unlike most of the apps for iOS or Android, developers don't really have to program a new app for the Google Web Store to get it into the market. Especially in this early stage of the store, many of the "… Read more