Google Chrome

So I was was thinking and wondering what I would talk about this week for my blog and just looking up things about what other people had posted. And somehow I just came to the idea to write about something that I use on everyday basis with things for class, homework or just using it to explore the world wide web and it is Google's web browser called Google chrome.

Google Chrome is one of Google's most prized ideas in my viewpoint. It is the third most used browser with around 4.6% usage share of web browsers.Chromes public official release date was December 11, 2008 and its name comes from the graphical user interface frame of web browsers. It is written in C++ and assembly. It is an open source browser that uses Webkit layout engines and application framework and is powered by Google gears. Its includes features such as default homepage thats displays your most visited sites, tabbed browesers so that each tab gets its own process in which leads to fasting and more stable browsing and malware and phising lists that can automatically update themselves and warns you of bad websites.

Chrome Website and Video of Chrome

Chrome also has a mode called "incognito" that lets the you browse the web in complete privacy because this mode doesn't allow it to record any of your activity. Google advertises its web browser with three words speed, simplicity and style. Speed from quick starting from your desktop, faster loading of web pages and faster with running applications. Simplicity with the organization of the tabs and searching and navigating web pages from the same box. And lastly Style in that you can style the way your browser looks like with different artist themes and looks.

Office 2010 beta, Outlook, meet Facebook

The just-released Microsoft Office 2010 beta shows Microsoft's vision for integrating Office with the greater Internet. Most notably, it introduces a potentially powerful Outlook feature that can combine your e-mail with social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Also on display is the Web-based version of Office, another way Microsoft is trying to make sure that Office is no longer the island it has been for too long. However, that is marred somewhat by the lack of some important features in the Web-based version of Office, such as the ability to create charts in Excel.

Like the previously released Technical Preview, the beta also incrementally improves Microsoft's best-selling Office suite, putting the Ribbon at center stage as the default interface for all Office applications, powering up individual apps with tools such as built-in video editing, and including a variety of productivity enhancers, such as a better paste operation.

One of the most significant changes to Office is not an interface change, but a feature that could dramatically improve the way people connect with others and share information. Called Outlook Social Connector, the new feature has a twofold purpose: to track all of your e-mail and other history with each specific contact, and to extend Outlook's reach beyond Office to the Internet and social networking sites.

When you're reading an e-mail message to or from someone, the Connector appears at the bottom of your message in its own separate pane. The pane displays a history of your communications with that person in Outlook -- e-mail messages, attachments exchanged, meetings scheduled in Outlook, and so on. You can see all these items in one big list or click a tab to view just one type -- for example, just e-mails you've exchanged with that contact -- then click an item to go directly to it.

IE 9 is on the Horizon

While a launch date hasn't been set, IE 9 is on the way. Microsoft developers started work on it a little over three weeks ago. I must admit I've become a Firefox user myself because of the lack of performance on IE 8. Interestingly, Microsoft is boasting that IE 9 comes with a "serious performance boost". Also, "according to Microsoft figures, an early build of IE9 already scores four times as high on the Acid3 benchmark for Web 2.0 applications" (on Techradar). IE 9's performance gains will rely on PC hardware. It's the first browser to do this (render pictures, videos, etc) using hardware acceleration.

Here's a list of highlighted changes:

• Performance (using something called Direct2D system to improve client-side rendering



• Richer web support (more rounded corners available via css3)



• Support for HTML5
  


• Faster Java Script engine
  

While Microsoft boasts IE9 will show performance improvement, it still lags behind the competing browsers. Here's a graphic depicting a benchmark of performance:

It amazes me that Microsoft has been in the browser business for so long and can't compete against a new comer like Google's chrome. It goes to show it's not their niche. I give them credit for trying to stay in the game though and it's high time they improved on IE8 which is almost unusable compared to the other browsers (in my opinion). The graphic above says it all. Given the release of this browser version is at least a year out, Microsoft may throw more bells and whistles in there. They will need to release this version somewhat soon if they want to remain competitive. There are many users of the current IE version who already have a sour taste in their mouth. For more information from a developers view, you can visit http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/11/18/an-early-look-at-ie9-for-developers.aspx

Chrome Browser now has 30 million users

Google Chrome was designed for people who live on the web. People searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, or stay in touch with family and friends.With chrome only being just over a year old, it already has 30 million users. That is an astonishing amount of users in this short amount of time. In 10 years if this trend continues chrome should be a lot closer to IE.

It was designed to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. I prefer to use google over IE, or Firefox. I can counton one had the number of times I received a pop up. It has a clean look and everything in right in reach with one click. Chrome allows you to customize your window with backgrounds and patterns. It also features and incognito mode for times when you want to browse in stealth mode, for example, to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays. Webpages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito aren't recorded in your browsing and download histories. So thats a good way of saying it won't track you going to porn sites. LOL

Microsoft still has a considerable advantage over it's competition. It's going to be awhile before a web browser will trump IE. One reason is because it's installed on every window based PC so some older people that are not computer savvy will stick with the blue E on their desktop. I have to take my hat off to chrome for making a small but yet large leap in the browser wars.

Firefox Gains 80 million users in 8 weeks

Microsoft has dominated the the web browser markey, but FireFox has something to say about that! "According to

Chief executive John Lilly revealed the increase in user adoption in a Twitter post on Monday, and Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe, confirmed it to ZDNet UK on Tuesday."

I feel so may people like the FireFox is because it has better speed and more add ons to make browsing more convenient. They also have a user friendly interface with customisable themes (like Chrome) and less bugs, crashes, problems than Internet explorer (like Chrome). The main reason i feel so many have stop using Internet explorer is because and security and privacy issues. FireFox along with other web browsers have have had great success when it comes to those issues compared to Microsoft.

Web browser are becoming very competitive these days. I personally use Chrome by google, but my second choice would be FireFox.What I look for in a browser is the look, the feel/comfort, and the dependability. I want to be able to customize it from the home page to having my favorite sites a click away. It's always good to see competition.This allows companies go further to make a better product.

Coding for Mobile Browsers

Previously in class I blogged about some breakthroughs in the mobile market. Since then there has been a rush of more exciting news about new phone releases and more mobile barriers coming done. This will effect all of us either as developers or simply as users of mobile devices. One interesting problem still remaining is the vast diversity of mobile platforms out there. Operating systems such as Android, Apple's iPhone, Windows Mobile 6.0, and Palm are certainly the industry leaders when it comes to mobile OS's. But even among these main players, there is still a huge diversity in devices they are loaded on. Screen resolution, screen size, touch/non-touch screen, and hardware are just a few of the differences out there that can make mobile application development a headache for us.

One option is to provide services on the web whenever possible. In a similar way that desktop applications have moved to thin mobile clients, so too can mobile applications. As mobile browser standards evolve and a major player emerges as the 'go-to-mobile-browser', I think we can expect more robust web services on our mobile devices.

The W3C has a working "Mobile Web Best Practices" page to help get these standards established. While they are certainly far from simple instructions, I think this is a good solution to look to in the future. A simpler guide to web development can be found here: A Beginner's Guide to Mobile Web Development. What is important to keep in mind is that the devices with strong enough hardware capabilities are just now starting to be realized. As the iPhones, Palm Pre's, and Androids continue to advance, expect their web capabilities to significantly increase. Speaking of Android, check out the new Droid for Verizon!! A wicked fast processor, one of the thinnest QWERTY keyboards on the market, and a "Multimedia Docking Station" feature are just a few of the highlights. I'm personally looking forward to a bluetooth-navigation application that I can sync to my car :-)

Web Browser Turns 15

Photo courtesy of PCWorld.com

Some of you may have heard that the modern web browser we all use every day is turning 15. This is exciting news as most of us can remember life before the internet, we communicated by sending letters written on paper, and mailed through the postal service, made phone calls to talk to one another. The modern web browser is a staple of our current daily lives that has quickly become the way we live. In the most of the most modern uses of the web browser it is being used to run application programs, and modern methods we are currently studying are teaching us how to use the web browser more efficiently.

A look back at the browsers history: October 13, 1994 ” Mosaic Communications Corp. – later renamed Netscape Communications Corp. – releases the beta version of its Web browser, called Mosaic Netscape 0.9.” This browser was based on the mosaic code developed by the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA), and co-author for mosaic code Marc Andreessen was also one of the co-founders of Netscape. The Netscape browser reigned supreme until 1997 when the two year old Microsoft Internet Explorer browser took over the number #1 browser spot. Microsoft first released their Internet Explorer browser in 1995 as part of the Windows 95 Plus! Pack. The Microsoft browser was built upon the software they licensed from Spyglass, and off-shoot from the NCSA.

Next to join the fray was Opera, from Internet Opera Software based out of Norway. They released Opera for the Windows market on January 1, 1997, targeting the mobile device market. February 1998 Netscape creates the open-source project Mozilla. In July 2003 Mozilla Organization morphed into the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and in 2005 turned into the for-profit Mozilla Corp., maker of the popular Firefox browser, which made its debut on February 9th, 2004.

January 7, 2003 Apples joins the market with its Safari browser, which became their default browser for Mac’s. And the most recent browser to enter the market has been Google’s Chrome, first released on September 2, 2008 for the Windows market. With so many options it is important that we as developers are familiar with these major browsers and that we create software that works with all of them.