Monday, September 8, 2008

Google Chrome Features


Google Chrome:
is a web browser built with open source code developed by Google. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or "chrome", of web browsers.Chromium is the name of the open source projectbehind Google Chrome,released under the BSD license.

The release announcement was originally scheduled for 3 September 2008, and a comic by Scott McCloud was to besent to journalists and bloggers explaining the features of and motivations for the new browser. Copies intended for Europe were shipped early and German blogger Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscopedmade a scannedcopy of the 38-page comic available on his website after receiving it on 1 September 2008.Google subsequentlymade the comic available on Google Books and their site and mentioned it on its official blog along with an explanation for the early release.

Beta release:
A beta version for Microsoft Windows was released on 2 September 2008 in 43 languages. Google said more would be coming soon.On 3 September, a Slashdot news item drew attention to a passage in the terms of service for the initial beta release, which seemed to grant to Google a license to all content transferred via the Chrome browser.Thepassage in question was inherited from the general Google terms of service.The Register summarized the passageas "Your copyright goes up in smoke." On the same day, Google responded to this criticism by stating that the language used was borrowed from other products, and removed the passage in question from the Terms of Service.Googlenoted that this change would "apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome.
The first release of Google Chrome passed the Acid1 and Acid2 tests, but does not pass the Acid3 test; however, itscores 78/100, which is higher than both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3.

Design:
Primary design goals were improvements in security, speed, and stability compared to existing browsers. There also were extensive changes in the user interface.Chrome was assembled from 26 different code libraries from Google and others from third parties such as Netscape.
SecurityChrome periodically downloads updates of two blacklists (one for phishing and one for malware), and warns users when they attempt to visit a harmful site. This service also is made available for use by others via a free public API called "Google Safe Browsing API". In the process of maintaining these blacklists, Google also notifies the ownersof listed sites who may not be aware of the presence of the harmful software.

Speed:
The JavaScript virtual machine was considered a sufficiently important project to be split off (as was Adobe/Mozilla'sTamarin) and handled by a separate team in Denmark. Existing implementations were designed "for small programs, wherethe performance and interactivity of the system weren't that important", but web applications such as Gmail "areusing the web browser to the fullest when it comes to DOM manipulations and Javascript". The resulting V8 JavaScriptengine has features such as hidden class transitions, dynamic code generation, and precise garbage collection. Tests by Google show that V8 is about twice as fast as Firefox 3 and the Safari 4 beta.
Application support:
A feature of the Google browser (in fact one of the main reasons it was created) is the Application Mode. This is muchmore than just hiding the omnibox (navigation bar). This allows web pages to break free of the restrictions of the current browser paradigm. The browser paradigm freely allows the user to reload a page, navigate away or close the window, which would be disastrous for an application that is editing sensitive content. Although this appears to bea minor change, the lack of this feature means that there is no mechanism to prevent the sudden loss of unsaved data(without a major investment in an far more complex AJAX architecture). Other features still are required, such as desktop interaction, filetype support, and database access. This limits the browser chrome so as not to "interruptanything the user is trying to do", allowing web applications to run alongside local software (similar to Mozilla Prism and Fluid).

User interface:
The main user interface includes back, forward, refresh, bookmark, go, and cancel options. The options are similar toSafari, while the location of the settings is similar to Internet Explorer 7/8. The minimize, maximize, and closewindow buttons are based on Windows Vista.
When the window is not maximized, the tab bar appears directly under the standard Windows title bar. When maximized,the title bar disappears, and instead, the tab bar is shown at the very top of the screen. Unlike other browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox which also have a full-screen mode that hides the operating system's interface completely, Chrome can only be maximized like a standard Windows application. Therefore, the Windows task bar, systemtray, and start menu link still take space at all times unless they have been configured to hide at all times.
As opposed to the latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer, which allow the user to adjust the display dimensions of a web page completely, Chrome allows the resizing of the text only. Therefore, a web page 800 pixels wide, for example, will still be 800 pixel wide—even if the user resizes it. Only the text will be affected by theresizing.
Chrome includes Gears, which adds developer features that may, or may not, become web standards, typically relatingto the building of web applications (including offline support).
Chrome replaces the browser home page which is displayed when a new tab is created with a New Tab Page. This shows thumbnails of the nine most visited web sites along with the sites most often searched, recent bookmarks, and recently closed tabs.[11] This concept appeared first with Opera's Speed Dial.

Privacy:
Users quickly began raising privacy concerns about data collection in Chrome. The omnibar's auto-suggest features send data back to Google about the keystrokes inputted. A Google representative said that about 2% of the data wouldbe stored along with the IP address of the computer that sent the data. Google also stated users can opt-out byturning off the auto-suggest feature or switching to Incognito.

Security flaws:
Multiple security experts have criticized what serves as the automatic file download feature that comes enabled by default in Google Chrome. They argued that it could be used easily by an attacker to trick a user into opening a malicious executable file.A denial-of-service vulnerability also has been found that allows a malicious web page to crash the whole web browser.Google Chrome developers confirmed the flaw, and it already has been fixed in the SVN repository.

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