I love the whole concept of Google Chrome Frame. It’s Google spitting in the face of Microsoft and showing them that their software isn’t good enough for the modern web — by recreating it as Google software. Granted, Microsoft finally looks to be evolving with IE9, but they had years to do that, so Google stopped waiting and did it for them. Ballsy. Brilliant.

But Chrome Frame, which became an official stable product today after a few months in beta, has had one major weakness: it requires administrator rights to install the plug-in. Sadly, that’s something a ton of users in corporate environments don’t have. And that’s one segment that needs Chrome Frame the most, because they don’t have the option to install another browser. But Google is working on getting around that requirement.

The search giant said as much in their post today announcing the stable build of Chrome Frame. “We’ve set aggressive goals for future releases: we’re working on making start-up speed even faster and removing the current requirement for administrator rights to install the plug-in,” Google engineer Tomas Gunnarsson writes today. He doesn’t elaborate as to how exactly they’ll do that, but they’re working on it.

He also notes that Google is putting Chrome Frame on the same rapid release cycle as the rest of Chrome. That means a new version every six weeks or so. That’s like a fraction of a nanosecond in IE release cycle years.

And finally, full Gmail and Google Calendar support is coming to Google Frame in the “near future,” Google says.

Firefox has long been the go-to web browser among power users for its impressive feature set, extensibility, and openness. But Google's nimble, light, also extensible and open browser, Chrome, has won over Firefox's core user base. Here's why: More »

Filed under: Developer, Utilities, Google, Browsers

Google Chrome Frame, Google's plug-in for bringing HTML5 and the latest web apps to IE 6, 7, and 8, has reached stable status and left beta. Chrome Frame lets developers of modern sites and web apps support legacy browsers, with the plugin handling the HTML5 rendering when a user's old browser -- ok, old version of IE -- can't get the job done.

Chrome Frame is an alternative to more complex hacks that tend to slow sites down, but the beta tag probably scared some developers away. Well, now Chrome Frame is stable, so load times and crashes are way down. Some fairly big-name sites like DeviantART, HootSuite and github have already jumped on the Chrome Frame bandwagon, and I'm sure more will follow their lead.

If you're already using the Chrome Frame beta, you'll be automatically updated to the stable version, and future updates will happen on the same update schedule as Chrome itself. If you're just getting started with Chrome Frame, you can check out Google's handy intro video after the jump.

Today, we’re very happy to take the Beta tag off of Google Chrome Frame and promote it to the Stable channel. This stable channel release provides our most polished version of Google Chrome Frame to date, allowing users to access modern web technologies like HTML5 on legacy browsers. You now can download the stable version of Google Chrome Frame and users of the Beta will be automatically updated to it in the days ahead. If you’re an IT administrator, we’ve also posted an MSI installer for deploying Google Chrome Frame in your network.

When Google Chrome Frame went into beta in June, the team set aggressive goals for speed and stability before delivering a stable channel release. We wanted it to start much faster and to reduce crashes by an order of magnitude. After months of polishing, Google Chrome Frame now starts three times faster on Windows Vista and Windows 7 and the most common conflicts with other plug-ins have been fixed.

Thanks in part to how simple it is to enable rendering with Google Chrome Frame, sites like DeviantART, Hootsuite, and github have added support, and Ruby on Rails is making a better-performing, more standards compliant experience the default for all users of Rails apps. Google applications like Orkut, Google Docs, and YouTube have already begun adding Google Chrome Frame support. Gmail and Google Calendar are planning to adopt Google Chrome Frame in the near future to improve performance and ease the transition for users as they drop support for legacy browsers.

A stable release is just the beginning for Google Chrome Frame. We’ve set aggressive goals for future releases: we’re working on making start-up speed even faster and removing the current requirement for administrator rights to install the plug-in. Expect more improvements and features in the near future, as we plan to release on the same schedule as Google Chrome.

We would not have made it this far without strong community support and feedback. The users and contributors to the preview versions have helped improve and shape the product in huge ways. If you’d like to get involved or just see what’s coming soon, you can subscribe to the new beta channel or if you are adventurous, try the dev channel to experience the very latest. The whole team continues to listen to your feedback through our project forum and we look forward to working with you to improve Google Chrome Frame even further.

The Google Chrome team is hitting the road. From now through October, we’re giving 21 talks about HTML5 and related Google Chrome topics at 16 events, in 16 cities and 9 countries, and on 4 continents. Phew!

Check out our schedule below. Registration for almost all these events is open, so come say hi and learn a thing or two about HTML5.

Chrome and Safari: You may have dreams of reaching inbox zero, but actually getting there can be a chore. 0Boxer attempts to make the process more fun by creating a social competition out of organizing your inbox. More »

Have you ever been to a website with one browser, and then later with another only to realize that the contents displayed were different? Or have you been to a site without favorite browser only to read the note that your browser was not supported by it?

The websites in question are likely using techniques to detect the user agent, which contains information about the web browser and operating system used by the user.

A basic example is the Google search website. It detects the web browser to enable or disable the new Google Instant Search feature. Opera users for instance are not able to use the feature because Google uses browser sniffing to disable the feature for user’s of that browser.

The Google Chrome extension is a basic extension which can detect if a page uses user agent detection. If it is enabled, it displays an icon in the Chrome address form, if not then nothing is displayed. Take a look at the screenshot below to see how it works.

google user agent detection

User agent detection is not only used on sites to offer different contents to different browsers. Many advertising scripts are also using those techniques. That’s why you for instance see the icon on ghacks as well, even though it is used by third parties and not by us.

The extension is probably nothing that users want to have installed all the time in the browser. It is however interesting to see which websites use user agent detection.

Evil Meter can be downloaded from the Chrome extensions gallery. This site is also an example of a site that detects the browser in a different way, considering that it displays an active install button if the page is accessed with the Google browser, and an inactive button if another browser is used.

Filed under: Google, Browsers

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that Samsung’s much-hyped Galaxy Tab would be able to have its Android 2.2 OS “replaced with Chrome, when that arrives, though owners who aren’t tech savvy should have this upgrade carried out by a professional.” This information was supposedly confirmed by Samsung, which has since said that they have no plans to replace the OS on the Galaxy Tab. Typical corporate prevarication, or something more?

This information could be obvious, revealing, or questionable. I’m leaning towards questionable.

Continue reading this article…

Incognito Mode or Private Browsing mode allows users of Google Chrome/Chromium to browse the web without a trace of it. Well, almost. I mean, browsing in incognito mode only keeps Google Chrome/Chromium from storing information about the websites you've visited. The websites you visit may still have records of your visit. So how do you make Incognito mode default for Google Chrome and Chromium in Ubuntu, lets explore.

Incognito Mode in Google Chrome and Chromium

• If you haven't tried incognito mode in Google Chrome yet, try it once and get a feel of it. You can activate Incognito mode by using the shortcut SHIFT+CTRL+N in Linux(while the browser is already open, ofcourse). Or you could use the Google Chrome/Chromium settings menu.

How to make incognito mode default in Google Chrome/Chromium in Ubuntu?

• The following steps should work with all GNOME desktops, but I have tried this on Ubuntu only and hence the title.

• Right click on the top left corner of your top panel on your desktop and select 'Edit Menus'.

• And then select 'Internet' from the left side pane of the new window.

• You will see the Google Chrome and Chromium entries on the right pane. To change Google Chrome settings, double click on Google Chrome.

• Now, as you could see, there is a '%U'(without quotes), include '--incognito'(without quotes) before it. Include space as in the screenshot. Thats it. If you are using Chromium browser, steps are similar. Simply include '--incognito'  before '%U'.

Done. Next time when you start Google Chrome/Chromium, it will open with private browsing mode by default. Give it a try and let me know if you find any issues.

[via ubuntu-tutorials]

Google Chrome has been updated to 6.0.472.62 for Windows, Linux and Mac on the Stable channel. In addition, all of the above plus Chrome Frame have been updated on the Beta channel.

Along with the security fixes listed below, this version includes an updated version of the Flash Plugin with a fix for a security vulnerability.

Security fixes and rewards
Please see the Chromium security page for more detail. Note that the referenced bugs may be kept private until a majority of our users are up to date with the fix.

The Dev channel has been updated to 7.0.517.8 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and ChromeFrame.

This release focused on resolving minor bug fixes or crashes. More details about additional changes are available in the svn log of all revisions.

You can find out about getting on the Dev channel here: http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel.

If you find new issues, please let us know by filing a bug at http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/entry

Anthony Laforge
Google Chrome

Last week in the Official Google for Students blog, we highlighted extensions that help students stay connected with friends and family. Check out today's Google Chrome Extensions at School for extensions that can help you research and write papers for any class.

Chrome users have previously enabled experimental features (like moving tabs to the side) by manually adding flags to their Chrome shortcut. Now, dev build users can enable them from the new about:labs page. More »

It's happened to pretty much everyone who uses copy and paste: you find some text on the Web which just happens to be huge, bold, and a color you wouldn't even want on your argyle socks. You highlight, copy, and paste it into a new email message to share with a chum and the ugliness transfers.

If only there was a solution -- like some sort of hotkey combo which would automatically strip the formatting for you.

The Google Chrome team feels your pain, and they've responded. Chrome can now do exactly that. Instead of using Ctrl+V to paste, press Ctrl+Shift+V to insert your text without retaining the original formatting. Mac users have to perform the slightly more acrobatic Command+Shift+Option+V.

The new paste feature is yet another small-but-welcome addition to Chrome, and one that I'm sure I'll use frequently.

Google Chrome. Google Calendar. They're two great tastes that now taste even better together, with the addition of Google Calendar desktop notifications for Chrome. Notifications are still in Labs, but you can turn them on right now to get Outlook-like alerts for your calendar events. Just make sure desktop notifications are on in your Chrome settings, and then enable the "Gentle Reminders" item in Google Calendar Labs. Sounds like the latest example of Google's web apps catching up to Microsoft's desktop products.

Lifehacker thinks notifications might be one reason people are staying with Outlook instead of switching to Google Calendar, and that this might be the proverbial last straw for many Outlook users. Having Chrome open all the time to get your notifications could be a sticking point, but I can't imagine many Google Apps users don't have a browser open at all times. You also have to manually click away the notification box -- instead of waiting for it to fade, as in Outlook -- but that might change by the time the notification feature leaves Labs. Besides, some people like their alarms a little more persistent!