Chad's News

For those who missed it, Mozilla released Firefox 4 on March 22^nd. Major features include a more streamlined and minimalist user interface (a la Google Chrome), tab groups, WebGL support, better HTML5 support, faster JavaScript processing, graphics hardware acceleration, and browser synchronization. This will be the last major release of Firefox—Mozilla is switching to the incremental update model that has worked so well for Chrome.

It’s interesting to see the significant impact Google Chrome has had on both Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4, particularly in regards to the user interface and JavaScript performance. Google’s stated goal when it first released Chrome was to force the other browser vendors to improve their products in an effort to keep up. Google has been wildly successful in this respect.

Link #1: http://arstechnica.com/…

Link #2: http://blog.mozilla.com/…
(via Slashdot)

Here at the Chad’s News network command center, Firefox is still the browser of choice. Google Chrome, however, is still improving and trying to become a contender for that top spot. There is the useful Chrome Toolbox extension, which adds functionality and configuration options that have been needed for a long time. Also, Chrome now has a built-in PDF viewer, which appears to be in the latest release version. Lifehacker has a tip on how to refresh the thumbnails shown for your “most visited” sites on the new tab page. Another tip from Lifehacker explains how to configure Chrome such that embedded Flash content is played on demand (versus the default auto play). This change has not yet made it to the release version. And finally, the linked article discusses Google’s decision to drop direct browser support for the popular H.264 video codec. This only affects HTML5 videos—Flash content will still play with no problem.

Link: http://www.sfgate.com/…
(via Kim Komando)

One of Google’s stated reasons for releasing Chrome into an already crowded field was to force other browsers to speed up their JavaScript processing. With JavaScript being used heavily by many of today’s most popular websites, this is a commendable goal. And here at the Chad’s News network command center the only reason we installed Chrome was to access Facebook—the site was way too slow with Firefox (which is still our favorite browser despite that). Well, it appears that Google has succeeded. The development version of Firefox 4 has a faster JavaScript engine than Chrome on certain systems. All I can say to Google is “well done and thank you!”

Link: http://www.conceivablytech.com/…
(via Slashdot)

Google Chrome is blazingly fast, but I find it annoying that the browser exits when the last tab is closed. Now there’s an extension, named Last Tab Standing, to prevent that from happening.

Link: https://chrome.google.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

Google Chrome version 4 has native support for Greasemonkey scripts. This means there are instantly 30,000+ extensions for the browser.

Link: http://blog.chromium.org/…
(via Lifehacker)

Last week, Google released version 4.0 of its super-fast Chrome browser. A much-desired enhancement is the ability to support extensions. Say hello to AdBlock!

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Lifehacker performed some non-scientific speed tests on the latest versions of popular browsers. As expected, Google Chrome completely destroyed the others in the JavaScript category. This is why I use Chrome for Facebook—Firefox just can’t handle it on my underpowered machine. The only reason I stay with Firefox is because of its wide variety of extensions. Note that I was a bit surprised to see that Apple’s Safari also had very fast JavaScript processing.

Link: http://lifehacker.com/…

Here at Chad’s News we have a love-love relationship with Firefox, but it has problems with the script-heavy Facebook site. So I use Google Chrome, with its faster JavaScript processing and minimal overhead, just for Facebook. And it makes a difference.

Google has just released a new version of Chrome. It has a few enhancements, about 300 bug fixes, and even faster script processing. If you haven’t already tried Chrome, this may be the time to test it out. I personally find it to be too minimalistic and wish it had some sort of ad blocking feature, but Chrome has benefits that you won’t find in Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Link: http://chrome.blogspot.com/…

(1) In a recent security contest, Chrome was the only browser left standing, and (2) it finally has support for user scripts (not as good as extensions, but it’s progress…). Oh yes, and the real reasons are because it’s lean and fast and it takes advantage of multiple CPUs.

Link #1: http://arstechnica.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

Link #2: http://lifehacker.com/…

When Google released Chrome into an already saturated browser market, I seriously questioned their decision. Turns out one of the reasons was to speed up JavaScript, the language behind many of today’s most popular websites. By making their JavaScript engine so much faster, Google essentially forced other browser companies to follow suit.

Link: http://www.techradar.com/…
(via Slashdot)

Ten days ago Google released a new browser named Chrome. Despite the fact that the browser market is saturated, Chrome has already gained a market share of about 0.80%. One of Chrome’s best features is its ability to take advantage of multiple processors/cores, thus boosting its performance on multi-processor systems.

Thanks to Josh for this topic.

Link: http://www.google.com/…