Google Chrome Beta 5.0.375.29 unleashed!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Google has just released Google Chrome Beta 5.0.375.29, possibly making it one of the fastest browsers out there.

Today’s new beta release incorporates one of Chrome’s most significant speed and performance increases to date, with 30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over the previous beta channel release. In fact, looking back in time, Chrome’s performance has improved by as much as 213% and 305% on these two benchmarks since our very first beta.

There's a lot of new features included in the new update, but the one I really like is the Bookmarks/preferences/theme sync. It's like I can pull my home browser anywhere! However there's one thing you need to be careful of, once you install the sync, it'll stay there unless you delete or uninstall it. One more thing to improve upon I guess.

Google Buzz: What happened?

Image by COG LOG LAB. via Flickr

I am a big fan of Google. I love Chrome, Reader, Wave and almost anything else Google ( I even have an Orkut account for pete's sakes), however their newest foray into the socialsphere, Google Buzz, needs to be overhauled immediately.

On the first two days (gosh, even on the Q & A portion of the Google Buzz launch), all I read was how it was almost like Friendfeed. However, I consider Google Buzz as Friendfeed vanilla ultra lite. It doesn't even come close to what Friendfeed is today even after its creators left for Facebook.

A large concern for its early users was the security flaw that opened up their Google Profiles to outside people to look at who their contacts are and who they chat most with. With so much noise on this issue, Google has decided to do something about it by emphasizing the option to have the people you follow and contact with remain private. 

My personal concern here is how to reign in all the noise. For example: I'm a Robert Scoble follower because I like reading his status updates but his Buzzes (jeesh even his Friendfeed posts before) gets quite a lot of responses  that it keeps popping on top of the Buzz list that I fail to see other Buzzes below. I know it's a testament to the man's power to connect with a lot of people, but I'm now muting his lengthy buzzes just to read the other people I'm following. I'm not sure if he likes being muted by hundreds of people, but I definitely won't like it.

There's no way to categorize people I follow. Reading my Buzz list is like reading a newspaper that updates itself every few minutes and not knowing whether I'm at the Sports or Business page. Again, comparing to my Friendfeed experience, I was able to sort out the noise by putting people I follow in different categories thus allowing me to view them whenever I feel like it. Unlike in Google Buzz now where different topics pop up, making me feel disoriented.

Since Google Buzz is still a few days old, I expect it to make strides in its development, but until they've been able to put in user controls that makes the noise easier to organize, I'll be hanging out somewhere else.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Buzz Privacy Problem Makes It A 'Privacy Nightmare' (huffingtonpost.com)
• Google: Buzz off! (accmanpro.com)
• Google Buzz Love: TechCrunch Adds Buzz It Button, Mashable Runs Nexus One Contest (techie-buzz.com)
• Ultimate List of Tips And Tricks for Google Buzz (techie-buzz.com)

Zemanta helped me add links & pictures to this email. It can do it for you too.

Google Chrome Beats Apple’s Safari

via mashable.com

Our first set of stats covered the week of Dec. 6-12, during which Googlelaunched Chrome for Mac — a rush of downloads was to be expected. Now web metrics provider Net Applications has released its full month of December stats, confirming that Chrome had 4.63% of the browser market that month, versus 4.46% for Apple’s Safari.

Google Chrome will be the standard browser in the VERY near future. Suggest you use it today.

Posted via web from Whathappenstance

Google Chrome’s Low-fi Ad

via paintbits.com

Creative yet a bit irritating because of the high pitched harp music.

Posted via web from Geekpapa Blogger Lifestream

Google Chrome Love Video

via youtube.com

Posted via web from Robert Sanchez's Lifestream

New Google Chrome Beta (Again!)

Image via Wikipedia

There's a brand new beta for you to try out today. As always, we continue to focus on speed, and this beta release shows over 30% improvement on both the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over our current stable channel release. We've also improved two of the most loved and most used features of Google Chrome: the New Tab page and the Omnibox. Plus, we decided to add a little bit of style by allowing you to deck out your browser with colors, patterns, and images.

via chrome.blogspot.com

What can I say? I'm loving Google Chrome everyday!

Posted via web from Robert Sanchez's Lifestream

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Chrome gets themes galore! (geekpapa.blogspot.com)
• Google Chrome beta adds new features to location bar, new tab page (downloadsquad.com)
• Latest Google Chrome Beta Is "30 Percent Faster," Supports HTML5, And Is Prettier Too (techcrunch.com)
• Patrik Johansson: Google Chrome Gets Even Faster And Lets You Edit Your Top 9 (mashable.com)

Google Chrome gets themes galore!

Google now offers a gallery of themes for its Chrome browser.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google on Tuesday launched a gallery of 29 themes for Google Chrome. But Mozilla, while refraining from sniggering, boasted it's now up to 20,000.

Cosmetic changes are, well, cosmetic, but a lot of people like them as a way to add some flair to their machines. Many had been pestering Google to add themes support even though Chrome employs a Spartan user interface without much acreage for artistry. Last week's developer version of Chrome added a "Get themes" button in the Options dialog box, and now Google has flipped the switch to activate the Web page that button points to.

via news.cnet.com

Just love it! I just hope that extensions will be coming next. There are ways to do add extensions, but it requires a lot of registry changes that I'm not willing to deal with for now.

Note: This only works for the Google Chrome Developer version.

Posted via web from Robert Sanchez's Lifestream

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google launches Chrome gallery (news.cnet.com)
• Google Chrome Extensions Manager (techie-buzz.com)

Firefox 4.0: Early Screenshots Released

via mashable.com

A few years ago, Firefox was kicking ass and taking names. Internet Explorer was looking old and too full of its self (still), while Firefox was new and got way more features. Now, it's their turn as they try to catch up to what Google Chrome's been doing since its beta stage.

Google Chrome Releases: Beta Channel Update

Image via Wikipedia

Google Chrome 3.0.193.2 has been released to the Beta channel. Some principal changes release since 2.0.172.37:

• Updated V8 to 1.2.13.2 to improve stability and performance.
• Printing fixes and print selection for Windows.
• Initial support for the video tag.
• Updated look and feel of the url bar (aka the Omnibox).
• Improved our Developer Tools by adding the scripts and profiles tabs, plus support for docking the inspector into the main window.

Bye FF 3.5, I'm going back to Chrome

Image via CrunchBase

Yes, I was one of those geeks who went delirious when I read that Firefox 3.5 was ready for download, previous to that I was using Google Chrome as my main browser. After downloading it, I was pleased that the installing went smoothly except for two Add-ons that won't make it to the new version, one of them was important to me: pingfire.us. However, thinking that those guys will make an inevitable update to FF 3.5--I wasn't too worried.

I worked on FF 3.5 for a few days until I noticed that it seemed to be getting slower for the browser to load: 35 seconds. Then I checked out how much memory it was using: 20k+. Arrrgghh! What's going on? Nevertheless, I expected the new patch could change things. Too bad they didn't.