Google's Chrome 10 Beta is faster, boasts Chrome OS-like settings interface

Google has released a beta update of its Chrome Web browser -- called Chrome 10 Beta -- that is faster with both JavaScript and video, and includes a new Chrome OS-like settings interface and a password sync feature.

"Chrome's JavaScript engine V8 runs compute-intensive JavaScript applications even more quickly than before," Google said in a blog post announcing the update. "In fact, this beta release sports a whopping 66% improvement on the V8 benchmark suite over our current stable release."

The Chrome 10 Beta also has a "preliminary implementation of GPU-accelerated video," which will enable users with higher end graphics cards to rely on that hardware rather than a standard CPU processor.

"In full screen mode, CPU usage may decrease by as much as 80%," for computers with the appropriate graphics cards, Google said.

Chrome is released in three versions, which Google calls channels -- Dev, Beta and Stable. Dev is meant for developers adding new functionality to the browser, Beta is a public release with experimental featurers and Stable is the most polished (and ideally bug-free) version of Chrome.

Users can also sync their passwords across multiple computers running Chrome 10 Beta, along with bookmarks and other settings.

Passwords can be encrypted, or not, and syncing takes place through Chrome's setting pane, which in Chrome 10 Beta is not a pop-up box but rather a tab opening in the browser, like a web page.

The redesigned settings pane brings Chrome 10 Beta stylistically in step with the Chrome OS browser.

Inside Chrome 10 Beta, Google has given settings individual URLs -- allowing users to jump to the settings options they want without having to run through a sequence of windows.

These changes, Google said, are intended to make settings easier to find and share with others that a user may be helping -- such as friends and family assisting one another in using Google Chrome over the phone. An example of such a situation can be seen in the video above.

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Video: Google introduces its new Chrome 10 Beta settings interface. Credit: Goolge on YouTube

Image: A screenshot of the settings tab in Chrome 10 Beta.

Google Chrome's Personal Blocklist can remove sites from Google search results

Google rolled out a new extension for its Chrome Web browser that allows users to block specific websites from showing up in Google search results.

The free download is called Personal Blocklist and, when installed, adds an option underneath search results to block a website. If a user clicks the block option, Chrome block any results from that specific domain.

"We've been exploring different algorithms to detect content farms, which are sites with shallow or low-quality content," wrote Matt Cutts, an engineer at Google, in a blog post announcing the option.

The extension sends information about the blocked site to Google and the feedback on blocking could potentially affect Google's ranking system for search results, Cutts said.

A list of blocked sites is saved in Chrome, making it fairly easy to unblock a website if a user so decides, and a link to that list shows up at the bottom of Google's search results when the extension is installed.

The extension, though now available to the public, is still "an early test" and an "experiment" and Google is monitoring its usage and effectiveness, Cutts said.

Personal Blocklist is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, Cutts said.

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Images: Screenshots from Google search results in Google's Chrome browser with the Personal Blocklist extension installed. Credit: Google

Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox announce tools to block Web tracking by advertisers

Google's Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox Web browsers are each gaining new features that will block advertisers from tracking Web surfing habits.

Firefox's feature, announced Sunday, will be called Do Not Track and is under development. Chrome's utility, announced Monday, is called Keep My Opt-Outs and available now.

The two tools to help protect user privacy follow a December Federal Trade Commission recommendation that all Web browsers add do not track features.

Shortly after the FTC recommendation, Microsoft said its upcoming Internet Explorer 9 will have a feature that will enable users to create lists of websites they do or do not want tracking them.

Alex Fowler, Mozilla's technology and privacy officer, said in a blog post that Firefox's upcoming Do Not Track feature will be the nonprofit group's first step toward improving user privacy.

"When the feature is enabled and users turn it on, web sites will be told by Firefox that a user would like to opt-out of OBA [online behavioral advertising]," Fowler wrote. "We believe the header-based approach has the potential to be better for the web in the long run because it is a clearer and more universal opt-out mechanism than cookies or blacklists."

Google too announced its blocking tool in a blog post.

Sean Harvey and Rajas Moonka, two Google product managers, wrote that Keep My Opt-Outs will allow users to opt out of tracking from advertisers by way of a downloadable browser extension that will allow users to defer from personalized ads "from all participating ad networks only once and store that setting permanently."

Both Google and Mozilla's tracking blocking tools do, however, have a caveat.

The tools only apply to advertising companies that offer opt-out options. So far, advertisers have been slow to add such options themselves, though Google noted that the advertisers that are members of the Network Advertising Initiative offer such options, as do some Web advertising trade associations. 

Web advertisers track which websites consumers visit online in large part to offer Web ads that would appeal to a user based on the user's surfing habits.

Google said once its Keep My Opt-Outs feature could lead to users seeing repeat ads or ads that are less relevant to their interests. Google, a major seller of Web advertising, also offers the option of users tailoring ads they see in Chrome by telling the Mountain View-based company what types of ads they'd like to see.

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Image: A screenshot of the downloadable webpage for the Google Chrome extension Keep My Opt-Outs. Credit: Google

Google makes downloads of Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome available in Iran

With restrictions lifted on exporting Internet services and software to Iran, Google will begin offering mapping program Google Earth, photo management service Picasa and Web browser Chrome for download there starting Wednesday.

"Our products are specifically designed to help people create, communicate, share opinions and find information. And we believe that more available products means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for individuals in Iran and across the globe," Neil Martin, export compliance programs manager for Google, said in a blog post.

The Obama administration began permitting technology companies to export online services such as instant messaging and photo sharing to Iran in March. 

At the time, a senior Google executive applauded the decision to relax restrictions. Technology companies had not offered those services because of strict export restrictions.

Bob Boorstin, Google's director of policy communications, told human-rights activists: "We are hopeful this will help people like yourselves in this room and activists all over the world take a small step down what is certainly a long road ahead."

A Google spokeswoman said, "We worked to get these products available to the people of Iran in compliance with U.S. export controls as quickly as possible."

The push to make online services available for download in Iran got underway after protests over the disputed presidential election in 2009 there drew attention to the reach and power of digital services such as Facebook and Twitter. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said Internet freedom is a fundamental part of American foreign policy, with videos and blog posts fueling dissent in politically repressive countries.

Iran blocks access to social networking and other sites for most Iranians. Since the election, the government has condemned Facebook and Twitter, saying Iran's enemies use them in an effort to topple the regime.

Products still unavailable in Iran include AdSense, AdWords and Checkout.

Google still restricts downloads in Cuba, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, the Google spokeswoman said.

"This policy may change in the future as a result of the new Commerce Department regulation on publicly available software. For now, however, Google downloads are not available in those countries," she said.

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HTML5 logo unveiled by the World Wide Web Consortium, with help from Microsoft

The World Wide Web Consortium -- also known as the W3C -- released its logo for HTML5 on Tuesday, with the help of Microsoft.

The World Wide Web Consortium is a collaboration of sorts in which corporations including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Opera and nonprofits such as Mozilla contribute to international Internet standards. In all, the W3C has 322 member organizations.

The W3C's HTML5 logo, the group hopes, will be placed on websites built using HTML5, the programming language and technologies that are still in development but becoming an increasingly popular standard for the Web.

The logo, an angular orange shield, was designed by the W3C with input from Microsoft. And Microsoft is already helping to promote the logo's use.

Jean Paoli, Microsoft's general manager of interoperability, wrote in a blog post that "the logo links back to W3C, the place for authoritative information on HTML5, including specs and test cases. It's time to tell the world that HTML5 is ready to be adopted."

The logo can be downloaded and used or tweaked by anyone as he or she sees fit, under a Creative Commons license.

The W3C is giving away HTML5 logo stickers and selling logo t-shirts that read, "I've seen the future. It's in my browser."

"It stands strong and true, resilient and universal as the markup you write," the W3C wrote in introducing the logo. "It shines as bright and as bold as the forward-thinking, dedicated web developers you are. It's the standard's standard, a pennant for progress. And it certainly doesn't use tables for layout."

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Images: HTML5 logo and HTML5 logo T-shirts. Credit: World Wide Web Consortium

Google Chrome dumping H.264 video sparks angry responses from Microsoft, others

Google Chrome is going to drop H.264 video codec, dumping arguably the most popular video standard currently on the Internet in favor of WebM, a format it created.

The move has stirred anger, with many comparing Google's dropping of H.264 with Apple's abandonment of Adobe Flash.

Among those who have spoken out against Google's decision is Microsoft evangelist Tim Sneath, who in a tweet likened the decision to despotism.

Sneath's Twitter message linked to a blog post he wrote comparing the move with abandoning English in favor of Klingon, titling the post "An Open Letter From the President of the United States of Google."

Ars Technica called the move "a step backward for openness."

Jason Perlow, writing on ZDNet, speculated that the move had more to do with future infrastructure costs for Google's Web video behemoth YouTube than what's best for the Internet.

According to TechCrunch, H.264 format video made up about 66% of the video on the Web. H.264 is royalty free as long as it's distributed for free; otherwise, companies have to pay a licensing fee to MPEG LA, the group that owns the patents on the format.

WebM is a royalty-free video standard, with no current licensing fees in any form, and its list of backers includes Adobe, Mozilla (builder of the popular Firefox browser) and Opera, among others.

Apple and Microsoft are huge supporters of H.264. Abode Flash isn't yet compatible with Google's WebM video format, though it is compatible with H.264 video. But Adobe has said WebM friendliness is on its way.

Flash, a downloadable add-on for many Web browsers, is baked into Google's Chrome browser, leading to others, such as John Gruber of Daring Fireball, to call Google a hypocrite for embracing one not-open standard while shelving another.

So why is Google doing this? The company said Tuesday it was focusing on more open video standards -- those being its own WebM codec and the little used Theora standard.

The move is merely the latest in what is a never-ending battle to determine what the future of the Web will look like and what technologies and formats will power it.

"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," Google Chrome product manager Mike Jazayeri said in a blog post announcing the move.

"These changes will occur in the next couple months but we are announcing them now to give content publishers and developers using HTML an opportunity to make any necessary changes to their sites."

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Image: a screen shot of a Twitter message from Tim Sneath of Microsoft condemning Google's plan to drop H.264 video from Chrome. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Gmail creator Paul Buchheit gives Google's Chrome OS a vote of no confidence

Google’s Chrome operating system isn’t even out of its beta stage yet, and Gmail creator Paul Buchheit is already predicting its demise.

“Prediction: Chrome OS will be killed next year (or 'merged' with Android),” Buchheit posted on messaging network FriendFeed. That’s another service he founded.

Chrome, which slogged through several delays, offers few superior features to Google’s Android system, Buchheit added. The operating system will officially launch sometime in 2011, according to Google.

“Yeah, I was thinking, 'Is this too obvious to even state?' but then I see people taking ChromeOS seriously, and Google is even shipping devices for some reason,” he wrote.

Last week, Mountain View-based Google began shipping out its new Acer-built Cr-48 laptops to select Chrome testers.

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Photo: The logo for the Google Chrome Web browser. Credit: Paul Sakuma / Associated Press

Google's Cr-48 Chrome notebook shipped to pilot users

Cr-48, the 12-inch Google Chrome Notebook that was unveiled just two days ago, is already being delivered to customers who ordered them, according to TechCrunch.

The website, which covers all things technology-related, said it received an e-mail and pictures from a reader who filled out a form on Google’s site for one.

The Cr-48 laptop, revealed at a press conference this week in San Francisco, isn't up for sale in any retail stores. Instead, the computers will be given away as a part of Google's Chrome operating system pilot program.

The Cr-48 is designed by Google and is available in limited numbers to approved users in order to test out the "work in progress" and provide feedback to the company on how the system works.

Anyone over 18 can apply to take part in the pilot program. Google has not said how many Cr-48s will be given away.

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Google's Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop ditches the caps-lock and function keys

No caps-lock or function keys are to be found on Google's new Cr-48 Chrome OS laptops.

And no hard drive or Google branding for the blacked-out notebook computers either.

The Cr-48 laptop, unveiled yesterday at All Things Digital's Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco, also won't be found for sale in any retail stores.

Instead, the computers that look to be built for Darth Vader will be given away as a part of Google's Chrome operating system pilot program.

The Cr-48 will be built in limited numbers, by Acer, and sent to an even-more-limited number of approved users to test out the "work in progress" Chrome OS and provide feedback to Google on how the Web-based system works.

Anyone over 18 can apply to take part in the pilot program. No word yet on just how many Cr-48s will be made or how big the pilot program will be.

Google product manager Sundar Pichai lightheartedly said that getting rid of the caps-lock keys would improve the quality of comments on the Web.

The top-row function keys have been abandoned in favor of media keys that will handle the playing, pausing, volume and assorted controls for movies, music and other media.

The laptops, named for an isotope of the element Chromium, run Web-based applications and connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi or 3G wireless networks.

Because the Cr-48 will rely on the Internet to run all applications, a traditional hard drive has been ditched in favor of enough flash memory to store the software needed to connect to the Web.

The computers will feature a 12-inch display, weigh 3.8 pounds, hold about an eight-hour battery charge and boot up in 10 seconds or resume from sleep instantly.

A camera above the screen is included, as is one USB-port and a large Apple-esque trackpad.

While the Cr-48 won't be available to consumers, Acer and Samung will release other Chrome OS laptops next year, though no information has been made as of yet on exact release dates or prices.

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Photos: Google Cr-48 notebook computer. Credit: Google

Google shows off new Chrome laptops, launches Chrome Web store

In another salvo in its heated rivalry with Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc., Google Inc. on Tuesday unveiled the first batch of its highly anticipated computers powered by its Chrome operating system but delayed their debut until mid-2011 as engineers work out the kinks.

Google had previously said the Chrome operating system would be ready by the end of this year.

Google is recruiting consumers and a handful of businesses including American Airlines and Kraft to test a "very limited" number of the laptops which run on the company's 2-year-old Chrome Web browser. In exchange, they will provide feedback to Google on the performance of the laptops.

The first Chrome laptops with 12.1-inch display screens will be manufactured by Acer Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Google executives would not say how much they will cost. Other manufacturers are also building devices that run the Chrome operating system, they said.

Marketed as "nothing but the Web," the new laptops will come with free wireless connectivity, allowing users to send and receive up to 100 megabytes of wireless data a month, through a partnership that Google is working on with Verizon. Other Verizon wireless data plans will be available starting at $9.99 per month, Google executives said.

The laptops, which Google said are designed to be simple and fast, boot up in seconds.

Google is pushing the concept of Web computing in which consumers use online applications rather than downloading software to their computers. Web computing is a challenge to Microsoft's lucrative Office franchise.

"With Chrome OS, we finally have a viable third choice," in addition to Microsoft's Windows and Apple's Macintosh operating systems, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said at a launch event Tuesday in San Francisco.

Unlike Windows or Macintosh, the Chrome laptops will run on the Internet rather than running an operating system on the hard drive.

Google also launched an updated version of its online applications market called the Chrome Web store that offers about 500 games, news and other applications, some of which are free and others which are available for a fee. Electronic Arts demonstrated a game that will go on sale in the store Tuesday and Amazon.com demonstrated an e-commerce application.

Apple recently said it would open a store for its Macintosh computers in an effort to repeat the success of the store that sells applications for the iPhone.

Google is pushing adoption of its Chrome Web browser, which has grown to 120 million users from 70 million in May. It is still the No. 3 browser behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox, according to Net Applications.

The Google blog post is here.

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Photo: Google Chrome logo. Photo credit: Paul Sakuma / Associated Press