Google Chrome now third most popular browser

Google's Chrome browser has overtaken Apple's Safari browser to become the world's third most popular browser behind Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The feat, which has been achieved in just 16 months since its launch in 2008, comes as Microsoft's IE browsers continue to lose market share.



According to net measurement firm, Net Applications, Apple's Safari browser dropped into fourth place for the first time with 4.46% of usage compared to Chrome's 4.63%.

The uplift, no doubt thanks to the release of the Google created browser on the Mac and a big advertising campaign including on the search engines home page shows that Apple's Safari browser is still struggling to gain traction outside of the Mac Operating System.

The two browsers are still a long way off Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's IE offerings however.

Firefox sits currently at 24.6% while IE has fallen from an all time high of just over 90% to 62.7% with the company suggesting many defectors leaving in the last couple of months.

Opera Software's flagship browser also gained ground in December, and accounted for 2.4% of all browsers used in the month.

Source & Image:http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/30450/google-chrome-browser-third-popular

Exciting web browser trends in 2010

Next year is going to be a big year for web browsers. In 2010, we’ll hopefully see Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 9, Safari 5, and possibly even Chrome 5. This new batch of browsers will include several new features that have the potential to entirely change the way we interact with the Web.


What follows are five trends that we’ll be seeing in these new browser releases, and what they’ll mean to you. Some browsers may not see all of these upgrades, but you can bet that every developer in the browser field is paying close attention to what the competition is doing.

1. HTML 5 makes its mark

Anyone interested in the future of the Web should be paying close attention to the rise of HTML 5. It will to a large extent replace the need for Flash elements, but it’s so much more than that. HTML 5 is the first step toward more desktop-like web applications. It’s also replacing everything Google is doing with Gears, i.e. it will offer offline storage support, drag and drop file capabilities, and much more.

All of the upcoming browsers mentioned above will be paying particular attention to HTML 5 support, even though the specification won’t be finalized for several more years. It’s similar to how wireless router manufacturers began implementing draft versions of the 802.11n wireless spec well before it was finished. The 802.11n spec went through eleven drafts after the first was proposed in 2006, and it was only finalized recently on October 29, 2009. All the while, 802.11n routers were on the market.

2. Chrome rolls out Firefox-like extensions

2010 will also see increased focus on browser extensions. Google already offers extension support for developer Chrome builds, and it will be rolled out to the public with the release of Chrome 4. While it may just seem like Google is aping Firefox’s most unique feature, they’re also innovating by making their extensions much easier to build (they’re basically just web pages), more stable (they run in their own process), and easier to distribute (they’ll be immediately available on the Extensions Gallery after developers submit them).

After using Chrome’s extensions for a few hours, I immediately made it my primary web browser. I held off in the past because I was so dependent on many Firefox extensions – but when I realized that Chrome had pretty much all of the popular Firefox extensions, and that it was also much faster in other respects, the decision was practically made for me.

Firefox still has more extensions, but poorly made extensions also have the uncanny ability to destroy your Firefox experience. Mozilla will surely look into this for 2010 Firefox releases as they also work to catch up to Chrome on the Javascript rendering front (more on that below).


3. Firefox gets individual processes like Chrome

This is the beauty of competition (and the open source movement). While Chrome is mirroring a Firefox feature with their extensions, Mozilla is looking to implement separate processes for multiple tabs, plugins, extensions, and more. They’re calling this particular project Electrolysis – which is a fitting name since the goal is to separate these elements so a single unruly tab or extension won’t bring down the entire browser. Apparently, they’re even using the same open source code as Chrome for the project.

Electrolysis would not only make Firefox more stable, it would also help Mozilla tame the browser’s notorious memory management issues. While running many elements as individual processes does have the potential to eat up more RAM (as is true for Chrome), I find that it’s worth it to give up a bit more RAM for overall better memory management.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if individual processes make their way over to Safari, and also Internet Explorer at some point (although perhaps not in 2010).

Full story:http://royal.pingdom.com/2009/12/21/exciting-web-browser-trends-in-2010/

Google Chrome: Download YouTube Extension Accepted

The official Chrome Extensions gallery is restricted and Google doesn’t allow those extensions that it deems unfit. Easy YouTube Downloader extension was rejected by Google because it allowed users to download videos/audios from YouTube, but you can grab it from 3rd party chrome extensions gallery.

It seems that Google has realized that if they block an extension users can simply grab it from elsewhere. Today they accepted an extension called YouTube Downloader which allows anyone to download video/audio from YouTube quickly.

It adds a small download option below the embed code inside the info box on the right-sidebar, just like Easy YouTube Downloader extension. Both extensions have the same functionality, Easy YouTube Downloader adds download links while YouTube Downloader adds a drop-down menu with a button.



We wonder if Google will now accept Easy YouTube Downloader or perhaps there could be another reason why it was rejected in the first place.

The installation rate of YouTube Downloader extension is not surprising keeping the demand of such extension in mind, its been a few hours since it went live and has already surpassed 800 installations.

Source:http://www.addictivetips.com/internet-tips

A splash of color to your browser: Artist Themes for Google Chrome

In the most recent stable release of Google Chrome, we looked at ways to make a snappy, simple browser even more customizable, and we're happy to hear that you've enjoyed personalizing Google Chrome's look and feel with a few of our early themes for the browser.

Today, we are introducing Artist Themes for Google Chrome. We invited leading artists, architects, musicians, illustrators, filmmakers and fashion and interior designers from across the globe to create artwork for an unusual canvas: the modern web browser. The result is a vibrant fusion of art and technology, with a hundred Artist Themes that we hope will add a touch of inspiration and delight to your web browsing experience with Google Chrome.

One of our favorite themes comes from Yulia Brodskaya, whose innovative paper art techniques and passion for typography and illustration have brought her into the international spotlight. We were particularly intrigued by Yulia's approach to the design challenge at hand, explained in her own words:

I was really curious to see how the traditional paper craft, which I use for creating my work, can be applied to the Google Chrome browser. I made a quick pencil sketch first, choosing the two main elements for my theme: green jungle leaves for the top and a very colourful parrot to accompany it. Then I followed my usual working pattern and created a physical artwork out of edge glued paper stripes. I used the photographs of the paper leaves and parrot to design my theme layout, and sent the resulting mock-up to Google designers who brought the whole thing to life.

Source:http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/10/splash-of-color-to-your-browser-artist.html

Chrome 4.0 vs Opera 10 vs Firefox 3.5

In a three-way cage match, LifeHacker threw Chrome 4, Firefox 3.5, and Opera 10 into the ring and let the three browsers duke it out to see which would emerge as the fastest app for surfing the web.

Lifehacker conducted the test and said "Like all our previous speed tests, this one is unscientific, but thorough. We install the most current versions of each browser being tested—in this case, Opera 10, Chrome's development channel 4.0 version, and the final Firefox 3.5 with security fixes—in a system with a 2.0 GHz Intel Centrino Duo processor and 2GB of RAM, running Windows XP."

Opera 10 final is out, Chrome just turned one year old, and Firefox 3.5 has settled into stability. It's time once again to break out the timers and speed test today's web browsers.

A number of tests were run, including a "cold start" right after boot, a "warm start" after the browsers have already run once measuring the time it takes 8 tabs to load, a JavaScript testing suite, and memory utilization.

Opera turned in the best cold start time and was slightly slower than Firefox 3.5 with a warm start, while Chrome trailed the competition in both. But once the browsers were open and it came time to load 8 tabs, Chrome whipped both Opera and Firefox by loading up to about 1.5 seconds faster. Chrome also performed best in JavaScript testing, but was far less efficient in memory utilization with 8 tabs open than either of the two other browsers.

See the full results here on Lifehacker

Via:http://www.maximumpc.com/

Google Chrome with bookmark syncing for users

Google has come up with bookmark syncing for users of its Chrome web browser.Wit this you can sync your chrome browser bookmarks on different machines either home office or any other machine.

Xmarks, the well known Bookmark syncing utility is also letting users register for a beta to test out its Chrome support.

On its blog Google (Google) explained the new addition:-

As of today’s dev channel build, we’re adding a brand new feature to Google Chrome: bookmark sync. Many users have several machines,one at home and one at work for example.This new feature makes it easy to keep the same set of bookmarks on all your machines,and stores them alongside your Google Docs for easy web access.

To activate this feature,launch Google Chrome(Google Chrome)with the –enable-sync command-line flag. Once you set up sync from the Tools menu, Chrome will then upload and store your bookmarks in your Google Account.Anytime you add or change a bookmark, your changes will be sent to the cloud and immediately broadcast to all other computers for which you’ve activated bookmark sync (using the same XMPP technology as Google Talk).

Google Chrome Operating System

Google Chrome has always been a little more than a browser: it's optimized for running web applications, each tab runs as a separate process, the interface is minimalistic and there's even a task manager. "We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build," said Google in September 2008.

Google's blog announces a natural extension of the Chrome project: an operating system for netbooks. "Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. (...) Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel."

Link to this post: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com