• Mozilla makes much ado about nothing over browser ballot #
• Xmarks extension alpha for Chrome arrives #
• Archos soft launches own Android app store #
• Irish ISP to block The Pirate Bay #
• IT IS HERE: A Fully Functional Copy of The Pirate Bay #
• Microsoft offers cloud database previews #
• Like Vista, Windows 7 will grant 120 grace period #
• Check out my FriendFeed – uh, feed - for more tech news.

Mozilla makes much ado about nothing over browser ballot

I only recently blasted Opera for pushing its childish whims into the lap of the EU and now Mozilla – Firefox’ creator of which I didn’t expect this – also chimes in and is urging for even more strictness and regulation of Microsoft’s browser ballot screen. If you haven’t read my prior rant, I’ll reiterate: it’s preposterous that Microsoft is even buckling under the EU’s weight, let alone it even have to bolt the specifications of the ballot screen down even more (!). Mozilla spokesperson Anderson brings up issues like “Microsoft is causing inadvertent changing of the default browser in Windows and that’s not right” (which isn’t true, BTW) and other nonsense. Don’t be such a crybaby, Mozilla. Source at ArsTechnica.

Xmarks extension alpha for Chrome arrives

In response to Google’s own bookmark syncing feature for Google Chrome, Xmarks – the maker of password and bookmark syncing add-ons for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari – put out its alpha version of their add-on for Google Chrome. Source at CNET.

Archos launches own Android app store

Archos has launched its own Android application store, in response to Apple and RIM. The apps in this store, however, won’t only work with Android-enabled Archos devices, but will be available to any compatible device. Source at TechRadar.

Irish ISP to block The Pirate Bay

Eircom, an Irish ISP, agreed to cut off customers that illegally downloaded music or movies – after an out-of-court settlement with the entertainment industry. Now, Eircom will also be preventing its customers from viewing The Pirate Bay. Source at IrishTimes.

IT IS HERE: A Fully Functional Copy of The Pirate Bay

Speaking of TPB: after a torrent was put out containing the whole Pirate Bay repository, people were wondering what to do with it. Today, btarena.net has brought a nearly exact replica of the whole Pirate Bay site online, including downloads, tracking and searching. The site is also capable of hosting new torrents, although its creator insists that this must remain to be a mere backup, for now. Source at Mashable.

Microsoft offers cloud database previews

SQL Server 2008 R2 and – more importantly – SQL Azure came out for developers to preview and use with their web applications. SQL Azure is Microsoft’s hosted relational database which developers can rent for a monthly fee. Prices vary between $9.99 US for 1GB to $99.99 US for 10 GB. With SQL Azure, Microsoft provides pay-as-you-go storage and promises graceful scaling – if necessary. Source at ReadWriteWeb.

Like Vista, Windows 7 will grant 120 grace period

Windows 7′s predecessor, Vista,  allowed a user to prolong his 30-day trial to 120 days by using the ‘rearm’ run command at the end each trial period. This was possible up to three times, after which you were supposed to purchase a license key to continue using Windows. As it turns out, Windows 7 – now in final form – will also support this behavior. Moreover, it has been confirmed by Microsoft as not violating the license agreement.

So basically, one can do the 120-day thing, re-install Windows and go at it again – endlessly, without ever needing to pay for Windows 7…

While it is possible to make Safari [always] open links in new tabs, there is no user-friendly way to do this. To accomplish this behavior you will have to enter a line in Terminal.app:

• Quit Safari (CMD+Q)
• Open Terminal (\Applications\Utitlities\Terminal.app)
• Enter:
  defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true
• Close Terminal and re-open Safari

Tada! That does it indeed. While this is easy enough, Apple should have included it here:

Note: A solution to this problem in the Windows-version of Safari 4 has not yet been found.

• Top Sites: Tab homepage similar to Google Chrome’s, only fancier
• Cover Flow: Integration of iTunes-like Cover Flow for viewing history and bookmarks
• Tabs on Top: Also taken from Google Chrome (see screenshots)
• Nitro Javascript Engine: Once more, inspired by Chrome. Safari’s JS engine would render web apps up to 30 times faster than IE7 and 4 times faster than Firefox.

Not that I’m complaining, but did Apple just take the Chromium project and tack on its own additions? I haven’t looked into this yet, but Safari 4 certainly shows a lot of similarities with Google Chrome… On to some screenshots.

Note: After having used Safari 4 for 10 minutes, I already came across a rendering bug. When attempting to edit a link in WordPress’ WYSIWYG-editor, the page greys out and becomes unresponsive, forcing me to refresh and lose all unsaved work. Beta software indeed.

Browsers, much like everything else in the computer software business, started to evolve into something much more sophisticated and complex than first envisioned. It seems to me that while Firefox 3.0 was vast improvement over its predecessor, it has lost a lot of its attractiveness, a direct consequence of its increasingly intricate nature.

For a while now, I had been trying out alternatives like IE7, Opera and Apple Safari for Windows. Yet, none of them were able to haul me over. Except for the recently released Google Chrome, that is.

While Chrome was generally well received, despite it being extremely stripped-down, interest calmed though within a week. Consequently, the initial extra market-share it had stolen primarily from Firefox was lost again. It caught up with Opera and will likely stay above that mark.

Google’s promise is to become a driving force behind cloud computing by implementing the ‘best’ web browsing framework out there. To accomplish this, they based their work on the open-source project WebKit and developed their own JavaScript interpreter called V8.

For the time being, Google Chrome is a Windows-only application, with Mac and Linux versions coming down the pike soon.

Crisp UI

The user interface is very straightforward and exceptionally sparing on graphical elements. Every page in Chrome is a tab and each contains its own set of controls. The basic UI elements familiar from other browsers are present:

• Forward & back button
• Refresh button
• A bookmarking star
• URL/Search bar (a.k.a. the omnibox)

Unlike any other Windows application, Chrome completely lacks a traditional menu line (File, View, etc.) and substitutes it with two buttons containing all additional menus:

• Document drop-down
• Wrench drop-down

And that’s it. No bells, no whistles. As it should be, in my opinion. Unlike Mozilla Firefox, Chrome does look native on Windows, no matter which version of the OS you run. If you run Vista with Aero it’ll take advantage of the the transparent glass interface, but if you have transparency turned off, it’ll adapt and display a soothing blue-gray opaque frame. Windows XP users get the full candy-blue experience, while a bit sore on the eyes, it certainly fits right in to the XP atmosphere. I prefer the Vista-look.

Chrome is gorgeous-looking and makes me wonder why Mozilla didn’t pursue the similar plans it had for FF3.0. As a result, Firefox is less coherent, elegant and.. pretty. Alas. Furthermore, If you’re fond of Google’s web services Spartan look like, Chrome’s pristine user interface will most certainly make sense right away.

Lack of Bookmarking

To some this may come across as a flaw, to me it’s definitely a feature. Since I hate the hassle of bookmarking and all the management that comes along with it, I was delighted to see barely any provisions for it. I’ve grown to resent Firefox’ bookmark management system so much and tried a slew of online social bookmarking sites like Delicious.com and Digg – without result. It’s an annoying process and ultimately, I don’t believe we should be bothered by, since browsers [by default] keep track of your browsing history.

You can, however, create a bookmark by hitting the usual keystroke (CTRL+D) or click the well-known star-icon next to the omnibox (I’ll get to that in a minute). Google says they’re working on a more sophisticated system, but I’d encourage actually want to endorse the opposite. Just leave it out.

Speed

Chrome, like Apple Safari, incorporates the WebKit rendering engine, which makes it inherently faster than most other browsers out there. By having their in-house version of JavaScript built-in (“V8”), Google claims web apps will run significantly faster when compared to the competition. And I’m willing to vouch for that, although I lack a scientific way to measure this. I guess you’ll just have to take my unscientific word for it.

While it may cause some additional overhead at first, each tab is run in its own process. This sandboxes every pages and theoretically prevents one tab from causing another to crash or freeze up. Furthermore, RAM’s inherent fragmentation within processes is pretty much eliminated, since tabs don’t generally have a very long lifetime and are closed significantly sooner than the browser window itself. Browsers coming to a grinding halt due to memory fragmentation should be a thing of the past with this measure in place.

The only other browser that I know of that will be implementing a similar feature is Internet Explorer 8 Beta. I haven’t had the chance to look at it yet, though.

Compatibility

From what I’ve heard, Chrome is compatible with more web pages than Microsoft’s latest iteration of Internet Explorer, which is in its second beta right now. I personally haven’t noticed too many glitches from a rendering point of view, apart from YouTube videos not coming through right away. I’ll have to investigate IE8 first before I can make a definite verdict, however.

Incognito Mode

Similar to IE8′s InPrivate mode and Safari’s Private Browsing mode, Chrome also allows you to surf anonymously by means of ‘Incognito’, a specific window mode.

In order to make use of this, you will need to create a new Incognito Window by clicking the similarly-named option from the document-button in the upper right hand region. A spy-like icon will appear in the chrome on the left, further signifying that no traces are left as you scour the net. No passwords, history or caches will be retained after you decide to kill the window and resume your ‘on-the-record’ web surfing. Neat.

Omnibox

Contrary to the convention, Chrome merges the URL-bar and search-bar into one, which is referred to internally as the omnibox. Besides being a two-in-one kind of thing, it also makes attempts at guessing what you’re about to type. To accomplish this, it combines Google Search with suggestions and does a surprisingly good job. Also, while you browse the web, it’ll remember every page you visit in case you decide to return to it at a later time. In that case, just typing the first few letters of either the URL or name of the website will suffice for Chrome to auto-complete your request. Nice.

Download Manager

Google’s take on an integrated download manager is — again — very minimal. Downloads are confined to their originating tabs and uses a visual cue to guide the eye to a bar that runs along the bottom of the window. As you click on files, downloads are queued in the download strip, your files are stored in your usual download folder. Like the tabs, these items can be dragged out of the Chrome frame onto your desktop or any other folder.

Home Tab / New Tab

Analogous to the omnibox, Google further tries to anticipate users’ next steps by introducing a non-empty ‘New Tab Page’, basing its content on your previous browsing habits. The Home Tab/New Tab
Page is a page on which your nine most visited websites are listed in a grid. On the right, Chrome lists recently closed tabs and recently bookmarked sites.

Admittedly, the Home Tab does takes getting used to, but it grows on you once you give it a chance. If you have a web-based homepage, like iGoogle or Live.com, there’s no need to leave it behind since it’ll most likely pop up on your Home Tab too.

If you despise this feature, you’re just a few click away of switching it off.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of good to stand up for in Chrome. So much so that Google was able to persuade me into using it full-time as my only browser. On the other hand, I’d be a complete zealot if I didn’t acknowledge the fact that Chrome, too, is far from perfect. Therefore I’ll be dedicating the second part to this review covering ‘The Bad’ side of Google browser.

Image courtesy: Paul Thurrott

If I’m honest, I’m not the most credible source to rely on, due to the simple fact that I haven’t yet taken the liberty of installing it onto my machine. I’m planning to, though. I’ll have some experiences to share some time soon.

  (IE8) versus (IE7)

It’s important to note that Microsoft overrode its initial plans for a ‘standards compliant mode‘ and, instead, makes IE default to standards mode altogether. The former would’ve required developers to insert specific code, which would’ve been particularly nasty.

Paul Thurrott made all the download links available on his blog, here.

For now, I’ll just look at what other [more reliable sources] are finding. ArsTechnica put their all-seeing loupe on IE8′s first [beta] iteration and stated that it does the following things right:

• first and foremost, it passes ACID2, finally some real standards compliance!
• relevant to the prior, there’s the new CSS 2.1 Testing Center where you can test specific portions of CSS while developing webpages [for IE]
• IE’s address bar introduces (minor) additional anti-phishing measures by highlighting the current site’s domain
• ‘Emulate IE7′-button to revert to what is referred to by MS as ‘quirks mode’

On the other hand, as with every bit of software, the following features aren’t up to snuff (yet?):

• the funky ‘favorites bar’ is weird
• IE8′s interface is still a greatly displaced and needs a redesign
• still no capabilities for handling the ‘application/xhtml+xml’ MIME
• still no SVG-support
• standards mode performs slower than IE7 mode

Aside from the usual quirks and hazards, it seems to me IE is finally nudging into the right path. If they could make sure they have inline search and sexy it up a little, I’d be a glad to welcome it to my toolkit.

Let’s see where this thing goes.