Google Chrome on Mac
Google’s Mike Pikerton has posted the first screenshots of the Mac build of Google Chrome.
Apparently things are coming along nicely, with tabs now able to properly render web pages.
Mike comments that there is still a “very very long way to go” and a release date is still impossible to predict, although a July release date has been hinted at previously.
The latest nightly build of WebKit now includes support for CSS animations. WebKit is the rendering engine used by many browsers, including Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome browser.
Dean Jacksons explains the benefits of CSS animations:
CSS Animations is one of the enhancements to CSS proposed by the WebKit project that we’ve been calling CSS Effects (eg. gradients, masks, transitions). The goal is to provide properties that allow Web developers to create graphically rich content. In many cases animations are presentational, and therefore belong in the styling system. This allows developers to write declarative rules for animations, replacing lots of hard-to-maintain animation code in JavaScript.
The new effects are already implemented in the iPhone and iPod touch browsers, and should make their way in to releases of Safari and Chrome shortly. In the mean time, you can test the new CSS animations by downloding the latest nightly release of WebKit.
After news that Google Chrome is no longer using WinHTTP libaries in alpha versions of its web browser, Google now hopes to relese its browser for both Mac OS X and Linux before the first half of this year.
Chrome’s product manager Brian Rakowski said Mac and Linux versions are progressing. “That team now is able to render most Web pages pretty well. But in terms of the user experience, it’s very basic”.
“We have not spent any time building out features. We’re still iterating on making it stable and getting the architecture right.”
The status of the Mac OS X version can be tracked on the Google Chrome Dev Channel.
Google has released a pre-beta release to its dev channel allowing developers to take a look at new features packed into Google Chrome.
With a version number of 2.0.156.1, the release includes a new version of WebKit, autocomplete for forms, and an updated spell checker.
This release also brings Google closer to bringing Chrome to Mac and Linux, with its own version of the HTTP protocol. In previous releases Google has been using WinHTTP library, tying the browser to Windows only.
Google is yet to announce a release date for the final version of Chrome 2.0.
Pixel Labs has posted a rather amusing yet statistical poster of the browser wars. The cartoon depicts web browser and their market share over time.
Strangely absent from this cartoon is Google’s Chrome, which has a greater share than Opera.
Click on the cartoon to see the full version.
Your next PC could very well come loaded with Google Chrome. Google is in talks with PC vendors about the possibility of including Chrome with both desktops and laptops.
Manufactures such as Dell, HP, Acer, and Toshiba are all showing interest in shipping Chrome as the default browser. Currently, the majority of PC’s ship with Internet Explorer as the default browser, as it is included with both Windows XP and Vista.
Google Chrome currently has about 1% of the browser market, while Internet Explorer has around 70%.
Password management is a part of all major web browsers, and it just may be helping thieves steal your personal data, from banking logins to Facebook accounts.
Chapin Information Services conducted 21 security tests on Opera 9.62, Firefox 3.0.4, Internet Explorer 7, Safari 3.2, and Google Chrome 1.0. The results were not good.
Opera and Firefox fared the best, both passing 7 tests, with Internet Explorer 7 passing 5 tests. Both Safari and Google Chrome only passed 2 tests each.
It looks like browsers makers have a lot of work to do. Full results and details on each test can be found on the Chapin Information Services website.
Google has finally taken Chrome off its training wheels and removed its beta tag. The move comes after Google says the browser has met strict performance and reliability requirements.
Released just over 100 days ago, the beta version has been downloaded roughly 10 million times and taken around 1% of the browser market. Far shy of Microsoft’s 70% for Internet Explorer.
The latest release doesn’t include any new features, and is still only available for Windows, but does fix a few of the remaining bugs.
Users already using Chrome will have their browser automatically updated in the next few days, or alternatively you can download the new version from the Google Chrome website. Happy browsing!
Google Chrome is to get the same level of customisation as Mozilla’s Firefox, with a new effort launched to make it possible for developers to create plugins for the popular browser.
Third party applications or addons are attributed to the huge success of Firefox, and is currently the number one most requested feature from Chrome users.
Aaron Boodman and a few others from the Chromium project last week released a design spec detailing their plan for developers.
The document also lists some extensions that the company would like to support, including both an ad and flash blocker – both of which are top addons for Firefox.
Google is yet to give a release date on the feature, but at least work is under way. Stay tuned for more information in the coming months.
It has been a good month for the ‘underdogs’ in the browser wars this month, with Firefox, Safari and Chrome all gaining ground.
Firefox has hit a fantastic milestone, now with over 20% of the web browser market, up 4% from last month. Apple’s Safari has climbed to just over 7%, up 8.5% from last month.
Even Google’s Chrome has crawled back some ground, after a steady drop off rate from the browsers first month. Chrome gained around 12% during the month, taking it’s total share to just under 1%.
The losers this month were both Opera and Internet Explorer. Opera lost 5% of it’s market, and is now 5th in the race, behind Google Chrome. November also saw Internet Explorer’s market share plummet below 70% for the first time since 1999.
You can view the full report at the Market Share website. Historical data can be sourced from Wikipedia. The browser wars are really firing up.