On Monday, Google made a big splash with a customized Arcade Fire video page that showed off all the cool things HTML5 can do, from video, animations and 3D rendering to gorgeous fonts and choreographed windows. It’s all cutting edge stuff as far as what is possible with a Web browser goes, but there is one very big problem. It doesn’t work so great in all browsers, even browsers that supposedly support HTML5. If you go to the landing page that launches the video in Firefox or even the forthcoming IE9 (which isn’t out yet, but is very HTML5-friendly), it detects your browser and suggests you use Chrome instead. I received the following message on Firefox:

This site was designed with Google Chrome in mind and is unable to render properly in your browser. For the best viewing experience, we recommend downloading Google Chrome and trying this site again.

Windows/Mac/Linux: Two years after its inception, web browser Google Chrome reaches version 6 in its stable release today, bringing with it the much sought-after extension syncing, form autofill and autofill syncing, and an even more streamlined UI. More »

It's only available in the Dev and Canary builds of Chrome, and very few pages support it—for now. But if you want to get hardware acceleration running in Google's browser, it's just a simple command line switch away. More »

A recent build of Chromium, the open source Web browser which serves as the testing ground for Google Chrome, has been updated with a new feature: Google Chrome Labs. This internally accessed page is available by typing in about:labs in the browser's address bar. Currently, there are only two "labs" (that is, experimental features) available for testing - an option to use side tabs for Windows users and an option to see an expose-like tab overview for Mac users.

So how can you access this new Labs section, which is still off-limits to users of the standard Chrome browser? We've got the details in our latest "weekend project."

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Google Chrome Labs

For those that's don't know about Chromium, it's the open-source browser project which serves as the basis of what eventually ends up in the Google Chrome Web browser and the upcoming Google Chrome OS, an Internet-only operating system powered by Chrome.

The HTML5 test gives you one huge, bold number denoting your browser's HTML5 support level.

Simplicity is the key here: you just get a number. The number you see above is for Chrome Canary. Firefox 3.6.8 (my browsing workhorse) only scored 139 (and 4 bonus points).

It's important to understand that this is not a benchmark. It doesn't use any of the HTML5 features to render anything; the browser is simply asked, "do you support this?" and the site takes its word for it.

The "bonus points" come from audio/video codec support, as well as SVG and MathML for plain HTML. If that sounds like a bunch of acronyms I just stuck together, feel free to ignore it. What you should know is that the bonus is a bonus; not strictly HTML5, but stuff that usually goes along for the ride.

Another interesting aspect is that not every feature is worth one point. For example, the "Web applications" category has three tests, and is worth a total of 14 points. The "Gnolocation" group (under "Related specifications") has just one test, worth 10 points.

So the number you get isn't a count of features, but more of a weighted evaluation. Still, what's great about the site is its simplicity - it's a very easy way to convert people over to a more modern browser. Just have them point their trusty IE6 at HTML5Test, and then show them what you get on your awesome, modern browser. It's easy to understand, which is the whole point.

Yesterday we set out to find the most pixel-friendly browser on Windows machines. Today, designer and Lifehacker reader Kyle Dreger took it upon himself to determine which OS X browser makes the best use of your precious screen space. More »

Firefox 4 Beta is out with a revamped UI, Google Chrome continues to gain popularity, and Opera has a slick new version. Let's take a look at which browser uses your screen the best without wasting space. More »

Windows only: If you're a Chrome fan and want to see the very latest in features and fixes, even if potentially unstable, you've now got a Canary Build. It's an auto-updating, near-nightly build that runs separately from your standard Chrome installation. More »

Apparently, the Google Chrome team has been circulating a list of awesome Chrome extensions around Google, and everyone there liked it so much that they published it on the Official Google Blog. You can see the whole list there, but here are a few picks I wholeheartedly agreed with:

Readability: Great for removing ads and extra cruft from articles, paring them down to highly-readable text.

Turn Off The Lights: Darkens video pages to highlight the video you're watching. Works on YouTube and many other video sites.

After The Deadline: The ultimate spelling and grammar checker, brought to you by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.

There are more where those came from, to pump up your browsing experience. I'll say this for Google: they have great taste in extensions for their own browser. It's nice to see them encouraging their developer community, too.

Filed under: Browsers, Op-Ed

Firefox is doing a lot of usability-related work recently. And really, it now sports a fairly usable UI. It's kind of sluggish at times, but it is my browser of choice, mainly for political reasons.

But one thing never fails to piss me off ... why does the Find function have to be so bad?

Many people use large monitors these days (and often, more than one). This means that we often have a large mass of text all over the screen, but we want to find just a single word. This is a common function, and both Opera and Chrome have taken major strides in order to make it usable.

It's just one analytics firm's research, but it's a notable milestone: Google's Chrome browser surpassed Safari in U.S. browser market share, according to analysis of 3.6 billion page views by StatCounter. Chrome had already moved past Safari in global browser usage, but just eked ahead of Safari in the U.S. recently to third place, having 8.97 percent to Safari's 8.88. Internet Explorer owns about 52 percent, Firefox holds onto second with 28.5 percent, and other browsers make up the remainder. [Business Wire via Gizmodo] More »

Long have we searched for an easy way to sync browser extensions across multiple machines, and for Chrome users that day has finally come. If you're running the Dev channel, here's how you can easily enable extension syncing. More »

Filed under: Fun, Google, Browsers

Remember those Chrome speed tests? Well, apparently the guys at Opera saw them too, and wanted to one-up Google. The only issue was what approach to take. Google's tests are apparently very well funded and are done by a large crew of dedicated professionals.

PR budgets and relative size differences being what they are, Opera wasn't left with much of a choice but to play the underdog card, ... and they played it hard.

In a highly scientific speed test, you can see a couple of overdone Norwegians trying to pit the Opera browser against the time it takes to cook a potato. I don't want to ruin the end, but let's just say that Opera does come out on top.

Universal search and bookmarklet tool Quix is very handy and time-saving, as we've previously suggested, but it's even more help

Mac/Linux: If you've been waiting for a stable Google Chrome release befor

We've said for a while that HTML5 will change the way you use the web, but not all browsers are ready for the big change. This interactive chart highlights which features are still missing in your browser of choice. More »

Chrome's history menu lists your most visited sites and recently closed tabs, which is different from most other browsers. Extension Recent History gives you the history menu you're used to, listing your most recently viewed pages in a simple drop-down. More »

Google’s Chrome browser is shining brightly, and it’s not hard to see why. First, the stats: According to the latest NetApplications figures, Chrome now has 6.7 percent of the browser market–a stunning rise from zero prior to 2009. Competing browsers are either treading water or, as in the case of Microsoft Internet Explorer, in precipitous freefall.

We mentioned this yesterday, but now, after two days at this year's Pwn2Own browser-hacking competition, Chrome alone stands unhacked; hackers infiltrated every other browser on day one. Perhaps the best indicator of Chrome's security is the fact that competitors haven't even attempted to crack Chrome's "sandbox" despite a $10,000 prize. Chrome gives every process started within the browser very limited privileges to get the job done, keeping it essentially in the sandbox, so while it's possible to get in the sandbox, you can't do very much while you're there. It seems like this bodes extremely well for Chrome's security system, especially compared to its competition—and it'll likely give more people reason to choose Chrome over Firefox. [ITworld]