Category: Google
Weekly Browsers Recap, January 17th
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• Microsoft to Reveal Internet Explorer Mobile Plans
During the CES, one of the audience members has asked Microsoft’s Dean…
• Google Chrome Release Cycle
Google has recently published an interesting release cycle slideshow for Google Chrome…
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Google Chrome Release Cycle
Google has recently published an interesting release cycle slideshow for Google Chrome web browser that reveals some interesting points.
Here are some points that can be drawn from the presentation:
Google Chrome is treated as an online service rather than actual software, explaining the reason for such release cycles.
Instead of wasting time on feature branches (that can take weeks of debugging), Google Chrome team works on a centralized trunk, allowing to release more frequent updates.
The current release pattern is based on a six week release cycle.
Features are designed in a way to be disabled with a single patch (if required).
For the full list, see the slideshow above. Doesn’t work? Try direct link.
WebM Ready for Hardware Acceleration
It looks like Google’s WebM VP8 hardware decoder IP is now available for the chip makers. According to the recent announcement, they can now start working on a WebM playback support for their chipsets.
Same report also states that Oulu team is set to release a VP8 video encoder in the first quarter of 2011 as it’s currently ran in an FPGA (Field-programmable gate array) environment.
Google Removes H.264 Codec from Chrome
It looks like the search giant will soon remove a H.264 video codec from the upcoming Google Chrome web browser release.
“Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies,” said Mike Jazayeri, the product manager at Google Inc.
According to the blog post, changes will occur in the next couple months and this is just a notification encouraging content publishers and developers to make necessary changes.
Weekly Browsers Recap, December 27th
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• Internet Explorer is the Best Browser
A picture.
• Now Open This With…
A picture.
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Google Chrome Users Collect 1 Million Dollars
About a week ago, Google has started a unique charity project that converts opened Google Chrome user tabs into various goods:
10 tabs = 1 tree planted
10 tabs = 1 book published and donated
25 tabs = 1 vaccination treatment provided
100 tabs = 1 square foot of shelter built
200 tabs = 1 person’s clean water for a year
Today, it was revealed that 60,599,541 tabs were raised for charity ($1 million) and will be used to:
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Google Chrome 10, Now With HTML5 Games
First person shooters are next.
If you are using the Dev Channel builds of Google Chrome 10, prepare for a nice surprise. According to Google OS blog post, it now comes with two HTML5 games pre-installed: Poppit and Entanglement.
As of today, it will install games without your permission. However, manual removal is possible.
Google Responds to NSS Labs Browser Security Research Report
With the recent release of NSS Labs Security Research Report, Google has responded with the following statement:
These sponsored tests are limited in their sole focus on socially engineered malware, while excluding vulnerabilities in plug-ins or browsers themselves. Additionally, the testing methodology isn’t available in a way that can be independently verified. Google Chrome was built with security in mind from the beginning and emphasizes protection of users from drive-by downloads and plug-in vulnerabilities — for example, we recently introduced a new security sandbox for Flash Player.
As a reminder: Google Chrome 6 blocked 3.4% of all socially engineered malware, while IE9 – 99%.
Weekly Browsers Recap, December 20th
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• Free Xbox Slim
We are giving away Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 console…
• Internet Explorer 9 RC
Latest build is 9.0.8048.6000 (101209-2300).
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Firefox to Include “Do Not Track” Feature
Follows Internet Explorer.
Mozilla’s chief executive, Gary Kovacs while talking about Firefox 4 in Mountain View, California addressed user privacy issues and promised to deliver “Do Not Track” button in the first part of next year.
“The idea of ‘Do Not Track’ is interesting, but there doesn’t seem to be consensus on what ‘tracking’ really means, nor how new proposals could be implemented in a way that respects people’s current privacy controls,” said Google.
The Federal Trade Commission has also suggested adding such mechanism back in December.
