Google has released its own web browser named "Chrome". Google claims their new browser combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. Though its only out in beta for Windows XP/Vista users , Linux and Mac folks will have to wait a little longer.
Well, lets take a look and see what its all about shall we...
As seen in my video walk through the installation was quick. It did ask to import my Firefox bookmarks which It didn't allow initially since I had Firefox running at the same time.
My impression on its performance and speed
Opening the browser was quick, then again I had no bookmarks and hadn't used it yet. However as I visited more and more pages the initial response to opening them was always faster than what I am used to in any other web browser. In other words there was little lag overall. Every tab you're using is run independently in the browser, so if one app crashes it won't take anything else down. You also have the ability to end the process and kill off individual items such as a flash video player using a built in google task manager.
My impression on GUI (Graphic User Interface)
The interface is indeed streamlined. Keeping with the minimalistic view and menu options I scrambled to find all the options and icons that I was used to seeing in IE and Firefox. One thing for sure the default theme is the only theme, you cant change it. To access your bookmarks you need to go to the far right and click "Other bookmarks" which is different.
The browser buttons given are BACK, FORWARD, RELOAD and BOOKMARK. I whent into the options to add the HOME icon and that was it. If your wanting a STOP, HISTORY or PRINT button they arent there. You will have to access the History using the alternative methods such as CTRL+H and print a web page using CTRL+P. I did like the default open full screen look that gave me more viewing area.
Along the top the familiar tabs are of fixed width and can be easily added or removed, dragged and dropped. These dynamic tabs allow you to gather multiple tabs into one window or arrange your tabs however you wish. When you open a new tab it shows your most visited websites, recently visited bookmarks, and recently-closed tabs and full history. One thing I didnt find along the top was the search box like in Firefox. Instead the URL field is used as the search, keeping with minimizing options and clutter.
My impression on features
For web developers I was delighted to see that in the view the page source option Google shows it in multiple colors with line numbers and if you use the "inspect element" it displays the code used on a page in great detail.
Like "InPrivate" browsing, a feature in IE8 beta 2, Chrome's "Incognito" browsing feature allows you to surf the Web without leaving any history behind. This feature is also referred to as the "porn mode" for browsing.
The download bar doesn't indicate progress, it just shows a megabyte number.
Without any add-ons for it Google Chrome warns you if you're about to visit a suspected phishing, malware or otherwise unsafe website. Overall this browser is a good start for google.
DOWNLOAD Google's Chrome browser from hereOther Tips Users have watched
Written by PCWizKid on September 2nd, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on IE8 and Web Browser and firefox 3 and google chrome and pcwizkid.
Add-ons are programs that add features to a web browser or change the way it works. If you’ve ever wished Internet Explorer could do something new or differently, chances are there’s an add-on out there that will fulfill your wish.
I must have tried out hundreds of add-ons over the years. In this column, I’ll talk about five add-ons that I use every day. They have all earned a place in my add-on stable because they really have made my online life easier, and I miss their presence when using somebody else’s computer.
Power users love IE7Pro
IE7Pro is a free add-on for Internet Explorer 7 that is indispensable to me in my day-to-day work. It adds a raft of new abilities to the web browser, including advanced management of tabbed browsing settings, a simple download manager, spelling checks of text you enter in web forms, autoscrolling of webpages, quick searching of page text, ad and Flash blocking, custom keyboard shortcuts, and much more.
One of my favorite features of this add-on is its ability to automatically refresh a tab at a specified interval. In my job as an IT coordinator, I use Internet Explorer to monitor several spam filters in my office. Unfortunately, none of the filters automatically refresh the browser to display the latest captured e-mail, so I was forced to manually refresh the webpages every so often. With IE7Pro, all I need to do is right-click the IE7Pro icon in the status bar, click Refresh Current Tab, and then pick my preferred refresh interval. This feature is also quite useful for seeing the latest messages coming into your web-based e-mail inbox and for keeping track of online auctions and message boards.
Do you want to search the Internet for something you’re reading about on a particular webpage? Instead of copying and pasting the text into a search box, simply select the word or phrase, right-click it, then click Search With to search for the term using Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, or another search engine of your choice. The results appear in a new tab.
Have you ever closed a tab by mistake? No worries click Tab History in the IE7Pro menu, and then click Reopen Last Closed Tab. Did Internet Explorer crash? IE7Pro will offer to restore the tabs that were open when the crash occurred.
Road warriors who frequently switch Internet connections will love IE7Pro’s proxy switcher. Instead of manually changing the proxy configuration each time you switch connections, you can quickly select previously used proxy servers from a menu.
I really haven’t done IE7Pro justice in this column. It offers far more than I have described above. To download it, go to the IE7Pro website.
Simple but effective: Find As You Type
To search for text on a webpage in Internet Explorer, normally you must press CTRL+F, type the search term into the Find window and then click Next. Find As You Type is an add-on that allows you to see all matches to your search term as it is typed. Matches are instantly highlighted on the page. If you type a combination of letters that does not appear on the page, an audio cue sounds and the Find box turns red.
For example, when I type “phish” into the toolbar, as in the screen capture below, all instances of “phish” on the page are immediately highlighted there is no need to click a button. You can step through each instance of matched text sequentially using the Next and Previous buttons on the toolbar. You can even set up Find As You Type to start searching as soon as you start typing on a webpage no CTRL+F required.
To download Find As You Type, go to the ookii.org website. Note that IE7Pro offers a very similar “instant find” feature. Therefore, if you choose to install IE7Pro, you don’t need to install Find As You Type. That being said, if you like the idea of enhanced searching and have no need for everything else IE7Pro offers, then Find As You Type is an excellent choice.
Organize your downloads with LeechGet
An Internet connection can be unreliable, and far too often I have felt the frustration that comes from having a large download interrupted. Restarting the download in Internet Explorer is hit-or-miss; sometimes I lose the partial download, and sometimes I don’t. I wanted a download manager that could take over from Internet Explorer and give me more control over what happens when things go wrong. My personal favorite is a product called LeechGet. It operates as a standalone program that integrates with Internet Explorer by managing downloads you click in the browser.
LeechGet allows you to manage multiple downloads, pause and resume, schedule downloads to occur at a particular time, and split your downloads into smaller “tasks.” You can also impose a “speed limit” on downloads that restricts how much bandwidth they can use, thus leaving you some bandwidth to browse the web. The program includes a download history and speed monitor.
LeechGet has two versions: a free version that limits you to one download at a time and does not include updates, and a paid version that removes those restrictions and includes technical support. To download it, go to the LeechGet website.
Make RSS shine with RikReader
Since the release of Internet Explorer 7 and its integrated RSS feed reader, I’ve become a very heavy user of RSS, and have subscribed to hundreds of different feeds (For more information about RSS feeds, see The wonderful world of RSS feeds).
As much as I enjoy the convenience of being able to detect, subscribe to, and read RSS feeds from within Internet Explorer, its feed reader has a couple of glaring deficiencies. First, there is no way to mark all feeds as read, which I like to do when I am very busy or behind on my reading. Second, there is no way to view all of my feeds at the same time. So I decided to find a feed reader that would take full advantage of the Windows RSS Platform. RikReader is my feed reader of choice. (Technically, RikReader is a program, rather than an add-on, but it integrates with the feed-subscription capabilities of Internet Explorer.)
RikReader displays the feeds you have subscribed to in Internet Explorer. It offers both a conventional two-pane view, with headlines on one side and article text on the other, and an impressive “newspaper” view that displays the full text of each article or blog post in a multicolumn layout. In either view, the text size can be easily reduced or enlarged via a slider. By typing a term in the search box, you can instantly filter a feed so that only articles containing that term are displayed.
If you have many feeds (in the hundreds), RikReader can be a bit slow to start up while it loads all of them. Things may also slow down when loading the newspaper view or when loading a feed with many hundreds of articles. In such circumstances, you can improve RikReader’s performance by setting it to display only unread articles.
RikReader is free and can be downloaded at the RikReader website. In lieu of charging a fee, the author promotes his Amazon.com wishlist, which makes for interesting reading.
Me.dium: An interaction revolution
Humans are inherently social creatures, and we love to interact with others online—hence the popularity of instant messaging, social networking sites, and online forums. In the end, though, web surfing has basically remained a solitary experience. We’ve always known that lots of other people are likely to be looking at the same page as we are, at the same time, but we couldn’t see or interact with them until now.
Me.dium is an add-on that allows you to peek behind the curtain of the web. After you install it, a Me.dium “map” appears in the left pane of the browser. The map displays an icon representing you and the website you are viewing, along with icons of other Me.dium users who are visiting the same site. Users you’ve added to your Me.dium friends list show up as yellow, and others show up as blue. Surrounding your icon are icons representing related sites that you or other Me.dium users have visited. For example, if you’re at a news site, Me.dium will show you other news sites; if you are at a bank’s website it will suggest other banking and financial sites. You can click an icon to go directly to that site.
It’s great fun to watch all of the activity revealed by Me.dium. Not only can you watch other Me.dium users as you and they move from site to site, you can also start a chat that every Me.dium user at the site can view and participate in. If a Me.dium user is on your friends list, you can begin instant messaging privately. Every message that you send includes a link to the site that you are currently viewing.
Be warned, though: Me.dium can be a real productivity sapper. As you interact with people and websites you might not have encountered otherwise, many hours may pass unnoticed. Also, while logged in to Me.dium, you may want to avoid visiting a site that may cause you embarrassment if revealed to your contacts. You may adore crocheting fluorescent-pink-and-yellow pillowcases, but some of your contacts might find your hobbies highly amusing. Fortunately, it only takes one click to turn off Me.dium, and sharing information with Me.dium is automatically disabled when you enter a secure site or a local intranet site.
To download this add-on, visit the Me.dium website.
Where do we go from here?
And there you have it; I’ve shown you how to add some very useful abilities to Internet Explorer. But the add-ons I’ve described here are only the tip of the iceberg. To browse hundreds more add-ons that can enhance your browser, visit the official Add-ons for Internet Explorer site.
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Written by Jason on August 28th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Browser and Explorer and IE7 and Internet and Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer 7 and LeechGet and Performance and Web Browser and add-ons and config and free and google and how to and ie and ie7pro.
Will IE 8 be a FireFox 3 killer? With Beta 2 of IE8 being release late August it makes you wonder if Microsoft has learned their lesson and added the basic features that makes other web browsers like Opera and Firefox more attractive.
Currently in Beta 2, IE 8 is said to be noticeably faster, leaner and more intuitive to use. However you can probably count on it being the interface for Microsoft's Silverlight application, which competes against Adobe’s Flash.
First look of the latest Beta of IE 8 shows:
- The address bar now highlights just the domain in the URL decreasing your risk from domain phishing attacks by accidentally clicking links which are fake and malicious.
- The search box now sports the ability to display an icon for the search provider you have currently selected.
- The Bookmarking interface has been improved as well as access to all your other bookmarks are available from the “Favorites” button.
For one, IE 8 is allegedly to have the following features by the time its released (lets hope so) :
- WC3 standards adherence and compatibility
UPDATE
“IE8 has been significantly enhanced, and was designed with great support for current Internet standards. This is evidenced by the fact that even in its first beta, IE8 correctly renders the popular test known as ‘Acid2,’ which was created by the Web community to promote real-world interoperability,” said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect. “Our initial plan had been to use IE7-compatible behavior as the default setting for IE8, to minimize potential impact on the world’s existing Web sites. We have now decided to make our most current standards-based mode the default in IE8. - Automatic Crash Recovery
- Built-in spell checker
- Undo close tab
- Saving and restoring sessions
- Activities
- WebSlices
- Favorites Bar
- Automatic Crash Recovery
- Improved Phishing Filter
Most anticipated new features
The most obvious new features are Activities and WebSlices. These give you context sensitive options for looking up data (maps, search and so on), or doing stuff with it (emailing it, sharing on Facebook), rather like IE6's abandoned Smart Tags, and the latter are Sidebar Gadget-style clippings that let you view web content without actually visiting the website.
WebSlices sounds like Safari's Web Clip feature, but it's a different approach: where Apple's method is user-driven, WebSlices is site-driven; it's up to the site owner to define what, if anything, you can slice.
Performance and Standards
IE8 beta so far is faster. Microsoft says key systems including the HTML parser, CSS processing, JavaScript parsing and memory management are speedier than before, but it's still tweaking performance.
The Phishing Filter is back, but this time it's supplemented with Domain Highlighting – a Firefox-style feature that makes it clear whether the site you're visiting is the site you think you're visiting. The second beta will use SmartScreen filtering, a replacement for the Phishing Filter that offers a better interface, quicker performance and better analysis of unknown websites. It will also check servers to see if they're areas to avoid, so if you click on a potentially unsafe link in a chat window IE8 will pop up a warning message telling you about it.
Safety
In addition to these changes, IE8 will make ActiveX controls site specific, they will include protection against cross domain and cross site exploits and its Data Execution Prevention system will stop certain kinds of code from writing data to the system memory. When IE8 crashes you should be able to resume your last session when you restart the browser just like Firefox 3 does today.
Last but definitely not least, IE8 will be CSS 2.1 compliant and run in standards mode by default. There's also an Emulate IE7 option for when you encounter sites designed specifically for IE7, and a Quirks mode for IE5 emulation. Developers also get a Developer Toolbar for easy HTML, CSS and JavaScript debugging.
Details on these initial features from Microsoft IE8 feature list are here
Interested in Seeing what Firefox 3 has to offer? Watch my review
Other Tips Users have watched
Written by PCWizKid on August 11th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on IE8 and Tech Tips and Web Browser and firefox 3 and internet explorer 8 and microsoft.
Its been several months now I have used Firefox 3 Beta on Ubuntu 8.04. On my windows PC I have Firefox 2.x.
With the latest version now being official I installed Firefox 3 in windows along side version 2.x just incase.
In other words, I choose the custom install option when installing Firefox 3 and installed it into a separate directory on my Windows PC so that it would not overwrite version 2.x . That way I could compare side by side the results , differences and speed. My main concern are the security vulnerabilities and the consumption of memory that Firefox has. Other than that everything else about Firefox is superior to other browsers I have tried in the past.
Below is a walkthrough reviewing my first experience with
Firefox 3 Final release.
This is an unbiased look at Firefox, although I must say overall Firefox still is my browser of choice.
Other Tips Users have watched
Written by PCWizKid on June 20th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on IE7 and IE8 and Internet Explorer and Web Browser and firefox 3 and mozilla and pcwizkid and safari.
At the first place, I don’t really know the reason why the DOM inspector is installed by default in Firefox. This is a highly advanced web developer feature. Normal users like you and me at application level do not require it at all. The only reason I can think of is majority of Fifefox’s users are web developers. Therefore, it is installed by default. But since Firefox has now become so popular, I think it should installed by default as most normal users do not use it.
I think I read it somewhere in the latest releases of firefox, the DOM Inspestor has no longer installed by default? I can’t be sure because I haven’t tried the new installation. I usually just do the auto update from the existing Firefox.
So if you do not use DOM inspector in the Firefox, I would recommend you to uninstall DOM Inspector in Firefox for better memory resources and performance. To uninstall, just go to Tools -> Add-ons and select the Add-ons that you would like to uninstall.
Btw, if you think this DOM inspector could be useful to normal users, please share with me. Then probably we (as a normal users) shouldn’t uninstall this cool stuff. :) I don't see how benefits this inspector and it is only meant for web developers.
Written by ChampDog on February 23rd, 2008 with comments disabled.
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All the while I thought Firefox has a bug that doesn’t allow user to save file to a specify folder when we download a file from internet. It always forces us to save the file the default folder (e.g. My Download). So I ignored it at the first place and waited for the fix with the later releases but I was wrong. It is not a bug, it is the Firefox default setting. When you click “Save File†it automatically save it the default download folder.
This is the default behavior – save file to default folder (I’m not sure why this is default but I don’t think it is really convenient). So what I did is I manually move the file in the download folder (default folder) to the specify folder where I want to save the file to. This is really stupid for what I did. Anyway you don’t need to.
If you want Firefox to save your file in a folder that you want, perform the following instructions:
- Click Tools menu -> Options. The Options dialog box appears.
- Under the Download, select “Ask me where to save filesâ€.
- Click OK.
From now on, Firefox will ask you where you want to save your file every time you download a file. I no longer need to manually copy files to the folder I want to save to.
Written by ChampDog on January 5th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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It has been quite sometime Mozilla Firefox has gain market share from internet explorer since 2004. So you may ask “Why Mozilla Firefox?” or “Why not Internet Explorer?” It is time to understand why and you can make your own choice whether you want to switch or not. I’m going to share my own personal experience from user perspective why I like Mozilla Firefox.
1. Firefox is More Secure Than IE
When Firefox was first announced in 2004, it was more secure than IE for various reasons. This is also one of key main reasons why majority of users switch to Firefox for more secure surfing. However, when the recent IE 7 release, I no longer sure this still holds true because a lot of improvements has been made by IE all these years. No software is free of bugs and of course both Firefox and IE cannot run away from it.
HOWEVER, I will still say Firefox is more secure than IE. This is also what most people say but they do not understand the reasons behind. The reason behind is hackers do not want to hack Firefox, they want to hack IE! One of the reasons is 85% of people use IE and as a hacker, you want to target to the bigger crowd. Another reason is most hackers have a strong anti-Microsoft sentiment. They hate Microsoft and they will do their best to hack IE and screw Micrsoft. On the other hand Firefox is an open source and as you know open source is loved by hackers. So, what are you still waiting for? Switch to Firefox now!
2. Firefox has Tabbed Browsing and Better UI
I would say this is the best feature that I like most. I wonder why there is no such feature in IE until IE 7. With this tabbed browsing feature, I no longer require to open too many browser windows in my desktop. It is really messy sometimes. In IE 7, this feature has already been supported. However one thing sucks about IE 7 is they change the UI! If you just switch to IE 7, I bet you have hard time to familiar yourself with the new UI. The whole file menu is gone. I wonder if I should hold back my respect to Microsoft UI which I believe Microsoft's UI the most user-friendly.
3. I love the Firefox’s Find Features
This is also one of the most frequent features I used during surfing. I use the “Ctrl-F” to find a specify string in a page especially there are a lot of information on the pages. IE has this “Ctrl-F” feature but it is really annoying. In IE, it pops up the dialogue when you press “Ctrl-F” and you enter search string. You hit “Enter” to perform the search on the page. However, when you want to search for the next string in the page you need to press “Ctrl-F” again and annoying pop-up dialogue box appears again. You need to continue doing this until you've found what you want.
In Firefox, when you press “Ctrl-F” instead of pop-up dialogue box, it is placed at the lower left just above the browser’s status bar. You can just enter your search string there directly and the Firefox will search the page while you’re typing. The searching is incremental and the found strings are also be highlighted in the page. You hit “Enter”, you will go to the next found string. It is really a very useful and efficient feature as compared to IE.
4. Firefox is Platform Independent
This probably won’t apply to you if you’re just using Windows platform. I like Firefox because it is platform independent. It can runs on Linux, Windows and Mac. It gives me the same user experience when I switch to my Linux box from Windows.
One last thing in terms of speed and memory consumption, I don’t feel much different between Firefox and IE although some say Firefox runs faster with lower memory consumption. For me, there are almost the same. In summary, yes, I do prefer to use Firefox and IE. Please keep in mind that not all the pages can be run one Firefox. Those pages are usually run using Active-X control which is the Microsoft technology. You need an IE browser to run this page. I just don’t understand why the web designer wants to design such a page in the first place? They must be Microsoft supporters.
Get the Firefox now for better browsing now! To download Firefox,
click on the button on your left column under the Software Downloads section.
Written by ChampDog on December 9th, 2007 with comments disabled.
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Google has released its own web browser named "Chrome". Google claims their new browser combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. Though its only out in beta for Windows XP/Vista users , Linux and Mac folks will have to wait a little longer.
