Linux users have a lot of choice when it comes to web browsers, but Google Chrome still wins out over all the others, for its extensibility, great syncing features, and usability. More »

When TweetDeck landed in the Chrome Web Store, it seemed like an indication that it might eventually evolve into a pure HTML5 Web app. Now it looks as though that's exactly what's going to happen, with TweetDeck announcing that a new, not-just-for-Chrome Web client is ready for beta testing.

It's a natural progression for TweetDeck, especially since its originally Adobe Air app is practically all Web code. TweetDeck Web will sport a feature set which is nearly identical to the Chrome app, with the notable exception of Twitter streaming.

Initially, TweetDeck is targeting Firefox 4 and 3.6, Google Chrome, and Safari. Opera and Internet Explorer 9 won't be invited to the dance until a bit later on.

If you'd like to get in on the TweetDeck Web beta, head on over and register -- or sign up using your existing TweetDeck account.

Google Chrome already sports a number of security-minded features, from Incognito mode to a software sandbox which makes exploiting the browser a Herculean task. Now, Google has announced additional protection for Chromium and Chrome users.

Built upon the Safe Browsing API, the new feature introduces protection against malicious downloads. If a download link appears in the Safe Browsing blacklist, Chrome and Chromium will warn users against downloading -- a save button is still presented, of course, in case you're convinced a file is perfectly safe to download.

We'd like to see something a bit more eye-catching than the red warning icon -- like perhaps painting the entire bar red. Many of the people a feature like this aims to protect probably won't notice the icon or change in wording as they'll be focused on clicking the save button.

Google is initially making download protection available to Chrome dev channel users, and you'll likely see it in Canary and Chromium snapshot builds as well. After thorough testing, beta and stable users will be next in line.

Have you ever wondered what the Web was like before the Mosaic Web browser? If you were born in the last 20-odd years, or you only discovered your inner geek recently, did you miss out on monochrome monitors and the dial-up BBS era? Well, here's your chance to get a sneak peek at history: grab the ChromeLite extension and marvel as the entire Web is transformed into ASCII characters.

Now, ChromeLite isn't actually all that functional. For the most part, it simply strips images and converts text into a monospaced terminal font. There are a few Easter eggs inserted -- such as a fun message at the bottom of YouTube (image after the break) -- and some fun ASCII art, but that's about it. Rather oddly, most JavaScript continues to work -- so you can still enjoy Google Instant Search!

ChromeLite was actually made by Google as an April Fools' joke -- and indeed, an annoying 'you can uninstall this!' message appears at the top of every page -- but we're kind of hoping that Google, or another developer, takes ChromeLite and turns it into a real ASCII browsing extension with configurable settings. If anything, it will provide an easy way to save bandwidth and CPU time.

RockMelt, the Chromium-based social Web browser has reached a new milestone today. Following its first public beta that was released in early March, RockMelt Beta 2 has started being pushed to the browser's users. The new version brings many new features, alongside the usual bug fixes, performance enhancements, and a new base for the browser -- Chromium 10, which also powers Google Chrome's stable channel releases at the moment. The previous RockMelt beta was based on Chromium 9, and it's nice to see it kept up-to-date.

Perhaps the most intriguing new feature in RockMelt Beta 2 is the new bookmarking system, intuitively called View Later. RockMelt's developers have come to the conclusion that, in a modern browser that offers address auto-complete and makes the most visited sites accessible on the new tab page, people don't use bookmarks anymore -- at least not the way they used to back in the day. These days apparently, bookmarking is mostly about saving interesting pages for future reference. Which is where View Later comes in. You just click on the new clock icon at the far right of the address bar (where Chrome's star icon is), and you've added the page you're viewing to your View Later queue. You can even add individual posts from Facebook or Twitter. Your View Later contents are synced using RockMelt's general sync mechanism.

RockMelt Beta 2 also packs a new Twitter app, which now lets you edit retweets, view direct messages, reply to all, and easily use Twitter search. It uses Twitter's new real-time API, so you get the tweets exactly at the moment they're published.

The Chat bar has been redesigned, making it easier to keep track of multiple conversations, since chats are now docked in the Chat bar along the bottom of the browser, where they even stay visible while you browse the Web. Incoming chat messages will trigger notifications, and the ability to drag individual chat sessions out of the bar and into separate windows is still there.

All in all a solid update, that has started rolling out today and will reach all of the browser's users in a week's time. What remains to be seen is how many people are willing to switch from any of the 'big guys' to RockMelt for its added features.

Evernote's Chrome extension might not be quite as powerful a tool as Evernote's Mac and PC apps, but it does make a great addition to any note-capturing addict's browser toolbox. The latest update adds common Evernote actions to Chrome's right-click menu, making grabbing a clipping or starting a new note even more convenient. "Clip this page," "clip selection" and "clip image" are now just a right-click away.

Evernote for Chrome has also gained the familiar "snippet view" from Evernote's desktop and mobile apps. To browse the compact snippet versions of all your notes, click the Evernote icon in the toolbar. For extra note-browsing efficiency, there's even a tab that shows your saved notes from the site you're currently viewing.

Smaller tweaks include speed improvements and background clipping. Yep, clipping now happens in the background, so you don't have to wait til your clip is saved before you leave a page.

Serious Evernote junkies will probably still want to feed their addiction with a desktop app, but the Chrome extension is great for work computers and other situations where it's not practical to install desktop software. It's also just plain convenient, especially now that you can save a clip with one click!

Just a week after its open-source brother Chromium had its logo summarily flattened, Chrome has followed suit. For now it's only available in the Developer channel, but presumably it will quickly percolate down to the Beta and Stable channels. There are some more images of the new logo after the break.

It was originally speculated that the Chromium logo change was to differentiate it from Chrome, but now it looks like Google might just have grown tired of the unbalanced, 3D-effect Chrome orb. The new geometric design is definitely easier on the eye, and it will be a lot more flexible too. It looks great on the Windows 7 taskbar, too.

We expect there'll be a statement from Google about the new logo later today, and we'll update this post when we find out more.

Hundreds of millions of people are now using Google Chrome as their primary Web browser, and a good chunk of those users have probably checked out extensions or Chrome Web apps by now. If you've ever wanted to share your favorites someplace -- like Twitter, Buzz, a favorite forum site, or even via your Gmail account -- there's a new extension out that makes the process dead simple.

Winning points for clarity with the name Share Extensions, the add-in will automatically create BBCode, HTML, Text, and Wiki markup detailing your chosen extensions. Each extension's Chrome Web Store URL is included, as is its name, and you can optionally include the developer's description as well.

I did have an issue sharing via Gmail when selecting several extensions at once, but the pop-up text generator worked just fine every time. Share Extensions also adds a browser action icon, but you can always right click to hide it or resize the action area and slide its icon behind the double-right arrows.

Those of you who spend a lot of time online discovering and listening to music may want to check out Like.fm, a new app which is designed to automatically track and share what you play. It's a sort of 'discovery aggregator,' pulling in tunes from services like YouTube, Pandora, Rdio, and Grooveshark -- which already offer their own discovery tools.

Like.fm aims to provide one-stop shopping, so you and your friends don't have to remember to follow each other on a dozen different services. By aggregating data from a wide variety of sources, Like.fm hopes to make itself the place to get your new music recommendations. Facebook Connect support is also built-in, making it easy to find and follow your friends as you build out your Like.fm profile.

Jolicloud, once only a cloud-focused Linux distro for netbooks, has been re-branded as Joli OS. The company's focus has shifted slightly, though the goal is still to provide access to a fun, easy-to-use Internet experience. In addition to offering the OS itself, the Joli "cloud" portion will become a Web-based launchpad which users can install in Google Chrome (already available), Safari, Firefox, and even on the iPad.

The company has also announced a set of changes in the Joli OS 1.2 update, which brings an integrated file browser, an automatic Jolicloud login option, and Guest mode -- for those times when you want to let a friend take your Joli OS-powered notebook for a spin.

Last month's beta version of Chrome has become the new stable build, bringing a large JavaScript performance improvement to hundreds of millions of Chrome users. While it's a bit meaningless at this stage, this means the stable channel is now version 10, which first appeared at the end of 2010.

The main addition to this version is Crankshaft, a new version of the V8 JavaScript engine that results in 66% faster JavaScript performance -- as measured by Google's own V8 benchmark, anyway. Amongst other changes is the new-look tabbed settings page, sandboxed Adobe Flash for better security, and passwords are now synced with Chrome Sync. For complete release notes, check the Google Chrome Releases blog.

To update to the latest stable version of Chrome, simply close your browser and re-open it -- the update should be applied automatically. Alternatively, click the wrench icon and then About Google Chrome, which will check for the the latest update.

The open and free alternative to the Chrome-specific Web Store is now almost upon us! Developers, feast your eyes on the first milestone release of Mozilla's Web Application project.

Developers, this milestone release means that the OWA Application Manifest spec is now stable -- so you can now safely begin building apps. There is also a stable JavaScript API that you can use to interact with the browser (installing, uninstalling, etc.) There's also the beginnings of a tutorial that you can use to get started.

We've spent a lot of time jabbering on and on and on about hardware acceleration in the next generation of Web browsers.

The problem, however, is that no stable browsers have it turned on by default. Unless you're running Firefox 4 beta or Internet Explorer 9 RC, you're probably not enjoying hardware acceleration. Heck, our latest poll shows that almost 50% of Download Squad readers run Chrome, anyway!

Turning hardware acceleration on in Chrome 9, 10 and 11 (stable, beta and canary) is easy, and it can significantly speed up surfing on low-powered devices, like laptops -- or if you're the kind of person who has 30+ tabs open on your desktop PC. We'll show you how to turn on pre-rendering, too, which provides another nice speed boost.

Chrome, the new kid on the block, is fast. It has a spartan UI, too, which no doubt makes it feel faster -- but at a cost! Chrome, like IE9, has all of its juicier features hidden behind two or three mouse clicks. Having a lightning-fast JavaScript engine is great, but by moving your hand to the mouse you destroy any semblance of actual efficiency.

If you really want to make the most of Chrome's speed, what you need is is a bevy of keyboard shortcuts. Check them out!

• Alt+F or Alt+E -- Open the Wrench (Tools) menu (you can then use the arrow keys to navigate it...)
• Ctrl+Shift+B -- Toggles the Bookmarks Bar on and off
• Ctrl+D -- Bookmark your current Web page
• Ctrl+Shift+D -- Bookmarks all of your open Web pages in one folder
• Ctrl+J -- Opens the Downloads tab
• Shift+Esc -- Opens the 'Task Manager', which you can use to close errant tabs/processes
• Ctrl+Shift+J -- Opens the Chrome Developer Tools (which are surprisingly good!)
• Ctrl+L -- Selects your current page's URL (and puts the cursor in the address bar)
• Ctrl+Backspace -- Deletes one word/phrase to the left of your cursor in the address bar
• Ctrl+G -- Finds the next instance of your search term (Ctrl+F!) Ctrl+Shift+G finds the previous instance
• Ctrl+U -- View the source of your current page
• Ctrl+R -- The same as F5 (might be faster for some people to type)
• Ctrl+1(2, 3, 4, etc) -- Switch to the tab designated by the number (from the left)
• Ctrl+Shift+T -- Re-open the most recently closed tab

Mac users, check out the list on Google's own Chrome support pages. Linux users, your shortcuts are the same as Windows!

Your operating system can run processes in the background -- things like realtime antivirus protection and streaming movies and music around your home -- and so can Google Chrome. Background apps have existed in Chrome and Chromium for some time, but now that the Chrome Web Store is open and its apps are available for installation, Google has posted a blog about why backgrounding is cool.

It's really all about Chrome being your "OS" even if you're using a Windows or Mac computer. With the ability to run Web apps in the background and Native Client support headed to the beta and stable channels in relatively short order, Chrome Web Apps will soon be capable of doing many of the same things your traditional desktop apps can do.

Google's post talks about using backgrounding to issue notifications (as apps like TweetDeck and exfm do) or to prefetch data. There's really no end to the possibilities, and we're exited to see what the next generation of Chrome Web Apps can really do.

Trustware's BufferZone was an early entrant into the desktop sandboxing arena. Sandboxing, of course, is the security-by-isolation system which has since been built into apps like Google Chrome and Adobe Reader X. Recently, Trustware launched a promotion and gave away BufferZone Pro for free -- and now the company is making the discount permanent. From now on, BufferZone Pro will be freeware.

But, wait -- BufferZone still doesn't support x64, and maybe you're thinking that there will be a paid version once a 64-bit Windows version arrives. Not so, Trustware's Efrat Schneider told me in an email: "The product will continue to be free," he replied.

If you're looking for a free way to tighten up security on your Windows system, BufferZone is an excellent app for the job. We'll let you know when the 64-bit version becomes available.