Chrome Blog
The latest news from the Google Chrome team
A fresh take on an icon
Monday, March 21, 2011
Some of you on Chrome’s
early release channels
may have noticed our latest tweak to Chrome’s icon:
Since Chrome is all about making your web experience as easy and clutter-free as possible, we refreshed the Chrome icon to better represent these sentiments. A simpler icon embodies the Chrome spirit — to make the web quicker, lighter, and easier for all.
Even before this effort, the new version of the Chrome logo was already being conjured up by Googlers and Chrome fans. Numerous creative reinterpretations have organically moved the icon towards simplicity and abstraction, so it felt right to make the icon structure cleaner and easier to recreate.
The Modern Browser
poster by Mike Lemanski, celebrating Chrome’s 2nd birthday
Chrome Magnets
by Tyson Kartchner
Chrome Starts Fast
video
Chrome Speed Tests
video
Redesigning the icon was very much a group effort. Collectively, we explored many variations, tried the icon in several different contexts, and refined the details as we moved along. It was important to maintain consistency across all media, so we kept print, web, and other possible formats in mind. Once we arrived at a good place, we finished up the icon by resizing, pixel-pushing, and getting everything out the door.
For Chrome users, you’ll see this latest icon reflected in your browsers soon, as we bring the latest features and improvements to the
beta
and
stable channels
in the coming weeks!
Posted by Steve Rura, Designer
Preparing for basketball madness with the Chrome Web Store
Monday, March 14, 2011
For those of you who follow college basketball in the US, today is
National Bracket Day
where millions are frantically filling out their
brackets
and preparing to follow their favorite teams' bids to the national college basketball championship. Luckily, I can use apps from the
Chrome Web Store
to help me follow the tournament like a pro.
Whether you're a loyal fan of your alma mater or college basketball powerhouses, you can get the most current news, scores, videos and photos all in one place with apps like
FanFeedr
and
LockerPulse
.
If you're watching multiple games at once, don't miss an upset with
Are You Watching This?! Sports
. This app shows you a scoreboard of all games you care about happening right now. You can also create personalized TV channel lineups for local cable and satellite TV providers that are automatically adjusted to your time zone.
You can even relive some of the best plays of the tournament with photos delivered by the
Sports Illustrated Snapshot
and create your own channels around your favorite college basketball teams.
These are just a few apps to help you stay on top of your games and bracket. You can find these and more
sports apps
in the
Chrome Web Store
or learn how other Google products can enhance your game experience on
www.google.com/collegebasketball2011
.
Posted by Koh Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager
Speedier, simpler and safer: Chrome’s basics get even better
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
cross-posted on the
Official Google Blog
Just three weeks ago, we
kicked off
the
Year of the Rabbit
with a speedy Chrome beta. Today, we’re excited to bring these speed improvements and more to everyone using
Chrome
. With today’s stable release, even your most complex
web apps
will run more quickly and responsively in the browser. (For the curious, this boost corresponds to a 66% improvement in
JavaScript
performance on the
V8 benchmark suite
.)
We realize that speed isn’t just about pure brawn in the browser—it’s also about saving time with simple interfaces. Chrome’s new settings interface will help you get to the right settings quickly so you don’t have to dig endlessly to find a way to
import your bookmarks
or
change your browser’s homepage
. We’ve added a search box that shows you the settings you’re looking for, as you type. On top of that, you can also copy and paste a direct link into Chrome’s address bar to jump to a specific settings page. (No more long, frustrating phone conversations with your dad on where to find that specific setting in the browser!) Here’s the
new settings interface
in action:
For those of you who save your passwords in the browser, you can now quickly log on to the websites you frequent even when you switch computers, by simply
synchronizing
those passwords across your computers. You can also encrypt those passwords with your own
secret passphrase
for extra security. To
enable sync
on each of your computers, visit the “Personal Stuff” section in Chrome’s settings (or just type “sync” in the settings search box). You can also choose to sync
bookmarks
,
extensions
, preferences,
themes
and more.
Finally, you’ll be even safer as you speed around the web, as we’ve extended Chrome’s
sandboxing technology
to the
integrated Flash Player
in Chrome. So if you’re using Windows Vista or newer versions, you’ll benefit from the additional layer of protection against
malicious webpages
. To learn more about sandboxing, check out this animated video:
We hope that Chrome’s speed, simplicity and security will continue to make your daily life on the web more enjoyable. You can download the browser at
google.com/chrome
, or if you’re already using Chrome, you’ll be automatically updated to this new version soon!
Posted by Tim Steele, Software Engineer
Faster than a speeding rabbit: speed, sync, and settings
Thursday, February 17, 2011
In the spirit of the lunar new year, we’re excited to kick off the
Year of the Rabbit
with a slew of enhancements in the Chrome beta channel. Today’s
new beta
includes a dramatic improvement in JavaScript speed, new password sync features, and entirely revamped browser settings.
In our new beta release, JavaScript is as quick as a bunny. With a new
speed boost
that we
previewed in December
, Chrome’s JavaScript engine V8 runs compute-intensive JavaScript applications even more quickly than before. In fact, this beta release sports a whopping 66% improvement on the
V8 benchmark suite
over our current stable release.
This release also includes a preliminary implementation of GPU-accelerated video. Users with capable graphics hardware should see a significant decrease in CPU usage. In full screen mode, CPU usage may decrease by as much as 80%! This means better battery life so you can keep going and going like that
pink bunny in the commercials
.
For those of you who enjoy the convenience of saving passwords in Chrome, you can
synchronize your saved passwords
across multiple computers, along with your bookmarks, preferences, themes, and extensions. For added security, you can choose to encrypt your synced passwords with your own secret sync passphrase. To
enable sync
, visit the “Personal Stuff” section of Chrome’s settings dialog.
Speaking of settings, you’ll notice we have reworked the look and feel of the settings dialogs. Instead of opening in a separate window, they now open in a tab. More importantly, we’ve added two new settings features that make it easy to customize Chrome to your liking. Firstly, if you can’t remember where a particular pesky configuration setting is, simply type its name into the search box to see the settings that match as you type. Secondly, you can also now jump directly to most settings pages using their own dedicated URLs, without needing to navigate through a sequence of windows. Here’s a short video of the new settings interface in action:
As always, we’re eager to get your feedback, and look forward to bringing this basket of beta-fortified carrots to the stable channel over the coming weeks! (For those of you keen for some fun and games in this Year of the Rabbit, we’ll leave you with the mind-bending
#ThinkFastGame speed challenge
to try out alongside our new
beta
.)
Posted by Jeff Chang, Product Manager and Min Li Chan, Product Marketing Manager
New Chrome extension: block sites from Google’s web search results
Monday, February 14, 2011
Today the Google web search team launched a new Chrome extension to block low-quality sites from appearing in Google’s web search results. Read more in the post below, cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
. - Ed
We’ve been exploring different algorithms to detect
content farms
, which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. One of the signals we're exploring is explicit feedback from users. To that end, today we’re launching an early, experimental Chrome extension so people can
block sites from their web search results
. If installed, the extension also sends blocked site information to Google, and we will study the resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results.
You can download the extension and
start blocking sites now
. It looks like this:
When you block a site with the extension, you won’t see results from that domain again in your Google search results. You can always revoke a blocked site at the bottom of the search results, so it's easy to undo blocks:
You can also edit your list of blocked sites by clicking on the extension's icon in the top right of the Chrome window.
This is an early test, but the extension is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. We hope this extension improves your search experience, and thanks in advance for participating in this experiment. If you’re a tech-savvy Chrome user, please download and try the
Personal Blocklist extension
today.
Posted by Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer
A dash of speed, 3D and apps
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Today, we’re excited to bring several new features from Chrome’s beta channel to the stable build, including WebGL, Chrome Instant, and the Chrome Web Store.
WebGL
is a new technology which brings
hardware-accelerated 3D graphics
to the browser. With WebGL in Chrome, you can experience rich 3D experiences right inside the browser with no need for additional software. Curious about the three-dimensional possibilities? Try out
these demos
to experience the power of WebGL in the
latest stable version of Chrome
.
With Chrome Instant (à la
Google Instant
), web pages that you frequently visit will begin loading as soon as you start typing the URL. (“Look, Mom - no enter key!”). If supported by your default search engine, search results appear instantly as you type queries in the
omnibox
. To try out Instant, you’ll need to
enable it
in the Basics tab of Chrome’s options.
Lastly, the
Chrome Web Store
is now open to all Chrome users in the United States. As part of this, we’ve now added a link to the Chrome Web Store on the New Tab page, along with two sample apps. (If you don’t use these sample apps, they will automatically disappear after some time).
Some of the newest additions in the Chrome Web Store include
BBC GoodFood
,
Autodesk
,
Sesame Street
, nine
King.com Games
and
Marvel Comics
. There are also many apps that take advantage of the latest web technologies to deliver an immersive experience, such as
Tweetdeck
and
The New York Times
. While the store is currently only available for Chrome users in the U.S., we’re working hard to expand availability to users around the world soon, so stay tuned!
Posted by Erik Kay and Aaron Boodman, Software Engineers
Living on the web with the Chrome Web Store (and the Cr-48!)
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Since we opened the
Chrome Web Store
last month, I’ve made it a daily habit to check out the store for new applications. Each time, I’ve discovered new things I can do on the web that work just as well as and often better than software I had to install and maintain on my computer -- such as
playing games
,
listening to music
, or
getting work done
. Living on the web is much easier than you might think!
If you already live on the web and are itching to get your hands on a Chrome notebook, we’ve teamed up with a few Web Store apps for a chance to
test-pilot
the Cr-48. Check out blogposts from
MOG
,
Box
,
LucidChart
, and
Zoho
for more details. Then go ahead and
rock out
with 10 million songs,
manage your files
in the cloud,
perfect your diagram drawing skills
, or
move your office
onto the web. While you’re at it, you might also discover a new favorite app among the more than 2,000 apps in the
Chrome Web Store
.
Have fun!
Posted by Heaven Kim, Product Marketing Manager
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