Tag: google

Chrome-3.0 & Extensions

Posted on July 10, 2009December 21, 2016 by Saru

On 8th July Google announced officially on its blog that a chrome OS is under development and will be available in the market from mid next year, though you can still get the source code’s starting this year end. The news is all over the blogosphere and twitter. Well few days back, Google silently launched the 3.0 version of the chrome browser on the chrome dev. channel. This did not have the hype as what Chrome Os has even before its release has, but it didn’t miss my attention as well.

So what’s hot in this 3.0 version of the release? The latest builds support extensions, has a customizable new tab page and a lot of other bug fixes under the hood. Extensions is really an awesome feature that everybody has been longing for on Chrome. I have posted some screenshots of the latest build with some extensions, so that you could have a sneak preview.

The New tab page, with the customizable UI, to pin your most visited websites in the thumbnail view. Still waiting for that tips & suggestions to populate.

A screen shot of the new tab page in list view.

My installed extensions (chritter and gmail checker)are visible on the status bar( they call it the tool strip)

My chrome extension screen shows the extensions that i am using currently. (Don’t be scared by the error, its just that i deleted something i was trying)

Now that you have an idea as to what it looks like, try it out your self. It would be unfair if I wouldn’t post links to the site where i got to read through and try the extensions. So here they go..

Firstly head over to the HOW TO page. Once you are done the the basics you can try these suggested extension samples from here. Do make sure you have the latest build from here or you are on the dev channel subscribing to the latest builds.

The extensions that i use on chrome are listed below. I have linked the original site incase you wanna try

Adsweep – removes adds. This one gets a 5 star from me.
Cleeki an interesting and a MUST try extension its very much like IE 8 Accelerators, in fact you can use all the IE 8 accelerators with chrome from here.
Chritter – the twitter extension that shows the last tweet of all the folks you are following.
Gmail Checker– displays unread mail count.
Rss subscription– finally you can see the feed icon on the URL bar.

If you are interested in Google page rank you can try this extension here.

Well there’s lot more to be done on the extensions development and their periodic updates etc, so far I am enjoying all the extensions i tried. Incase you know something i haven’t tried, do let me know i would be excited to try them.

Chrome hasn’t dropped me, and am already getting addicted to chrome. With such rapid development on chrome, Firefox has a lot of challenges coming ahead. Well that’s really healthy for the web..What do you think?

Four Reasons y Chrome will be your default browser.

Posted on May 21, 2009June 26, 2016 by Saru

I have never found time till today to express my thoughts on the browser wars. I follow the browser wars very frequently. I not only follow the browser developments and i dare to take the risk of downloading the latest build of one and test it out. Just to tell you i have played around with Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE8, Chrome, K-meleon, Kninja, Deepnet, Flock, Amaya, Maxthon, Netscape for couple of months. I am always amused to see what browsers will be capable of in the future. I recently realized that somehow chrome has become my default browser instead of Firefox which was my default for almost 3 years prior losing out to chrome. Chrome Rendering Engine:- Webkit is the best (I mean it) ever rendering engine, that i have seen so far and used. Two companies(Google, apple) trust it, makes it worth looking into. Web kit is known for its speed and cold start. gecko is till on the heels of Webkit to be precise. Google was supporting Mozilla for a very long time and in spite of it they chose to go with webkit and Gecko, proves worthy. Memory Management:- The browser has been redesigned in such a fashion, that each tab is managed as a separate process makes it really simple to manage multiple tabs, i.e if a tab crashes due to a plug-in problem or memory problem or something, your browser will be still up and you will loose only the tab that crashed. There is not better browser than opera on memory management, i feel chrome will be there soon. UI simplicity:- The UI is designed to be minimal and uncluttered, which helps people view more of the web than the browser. Before Chrome, Safari had the simplest of UI, after chrome safari changed it to the chrome style, shows simple the UI really is. Community:- A browser gets really complete when it has an open community working on it to improve it in all possible directions, Google has created that environment for webkit, with the initiative of chromium. A lot of add-ons, new features etc will be available as the development progresses. Moving ahead chrome will have a major market share. Chrome still is in its very early stages of development and has to travel a long way to be the best browser, but am confident its on the right track. It is rough, it crashes etc.. so it might not be your favorite for now, but you can’t stay away. I have been and am still a fan of Firefox and i extensively try a variety of the stuff the Mozilla labs innovates. I will miss the Weave, Ubiquity and a long list of add-ons that i use, But considering the general user on the web, what matters most is speed, memory and the UI and chrome will win everyone in no time on these aspects. If you are really interested in what changes browsers will bring in tomorrow have a peek here… i seriously wish chrome also gets a similar community.