Articles about Chrome

Dog years is too slow a measurement when it comes to the Internet, which pace maturing makes Moore's Law look like a skeleton sitting at a feast (it's too feeble a metric). Case in point: Google Chrome 50 officially releases this fine Wednesday, which is a long way from its late-2007 alpha. Whew, where did the years go?

Now before you quibble about who's how old when, let's clarify. By my math, and an official blog post, Chrome turned 50 one week ago. Maybe none of us noticed. I write this the afternoon before Big G rolls out the birthday cake, and Chrome was v49 when I checked but updated to 50. Perhaps this is a push comes to shove thing: Pushing the official day a week later when automatic update shoves the new version out to most users.

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The European Union has charged Google with anticompetitive behaviour, saying that the company abused the dominance of Android in the mobile marketplace. Regulators have taken exception to Google's requirement on phone manufacturers to install Chrome and Google search, saying that this stifles innovation and limits user choice.

Unsurprisingly, Google disagrees and has hit back at the charges saying that "our business model keeps manufacturers' costs low and their flexibility high, while giving consumers unprecedented control of their mobile devices". More than this, Google says it prides itself on having built a sustainable ecosystem built on open source software. It also says that Android has been designed in such a way that is "good for competition and for consumers".

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As Apple releases its transparency report, Google today releases its second Android Security Annual report. The report covers all things Android, from the security of the operating system itself, to the security of Google Play and the apps it provides access to. Of course, Google is keen to highlight everything it does to improve security for its users.

As such, the report shows how the company performs more than 400 million automatic security scans per day on devices with Google Mobile Services. Aided by machine learning, these scans help to home in on what are referred to as Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs). Google points out that just 0.5 percent of scanned devices feature PHAs, and this dropped to 0.15 percent for devices that only installed apps from Google Play.

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Google is looking to take steps that will enable Chrome users to make more informed decisions about the extensions they install. Specifically, developers will have to provide more information about data collections in the interests of transparency.

In addition, developers will have to produce a privacy policy for their extensions, and must ask for permission before collecting data about users. Google's new User Data Policy introduces these extra requirements in the wake of increased demands from users for more information about what is going on in the background.

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As a Linux user, I have stopped using Skype recently. What was once a great experience on Ubuntu, Fedora, and other such operating systems, has been seemingly abandoned by Microsoft. Skype on Linux is barely usable nowadays, as the client has not seen an update in quite a while. This is rather tragic, as it is otherwise a great service on other platforms, such as Android, iOS, and of course, Windows.

Users of Windows 10 that use the Edge web browser are getting a cool update this month, as Microsoft is rolling out plugin-free Skype support. While that is cool, the really intriguing aspect is the potential for Linux users, as it should lead to similar functionality on browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox.

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Researchers at security company ESET have released details of a new piece of malware that spreads disguised as video posts on Facebook.

Malicious links appear as a video post you were tagged in on a timeline, or as a message sent to you via Facebook Messenger by a friend. They use the titles, 'My first video', 'My video', 'Private video' or a string of randomly generated characters.

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During the Windows 8 era, I was very worried about that operating system -- the UI and design choices were troubling. Luckily, as a longtime Linux user, I was not tied to any Microsoft OS. Unfortunately for some consumers, Linux-based operating systems can be difficult to install and use, while Mac computers are very expensive. Chrome OS and the inexpensive Chromebooks swooped in to save the day.

For those that stuck it out with Windows, or used other desktop operating systems, Google introduced a Chrome OS-like launcher -- the unimaginatively named Chrome app launcher. It allows Windows, Mac, and Linux users to launch Chrome apps from within their OS' native UI -- it sort of felt like Chrome OS running inside of them. Today, Google kills this project.

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Microsoft has been keen to consigne Internet Explorer to the history books, but for a long time there has been a glaring issue with its successor, Microsoft Edge: a lack of extensions. With the release of Windows 10 Redstone build 14291 this finally changed.

While Microsoft Edge may now have extensions, it's still very early days and it's likely you'll find that most of your favorites are yet to make an appearance. But Microsoft has a plan. To make developers' lives as easy as possible, the company is working on a tool that will make it possible to port Chrome extensions to Edge.

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Many people look at hackers as bad guys, and yeah, some are. However, some of these people are actually good -- their work is beneficial for security. When they discover exploits, and report them, it can result in more secure software -- if companies listen, that is.

Google is a huge proponent of for-good hacking, and it even has its own Chrome Reward Program aimed at motivating these people. Basically, Google will pay hackers to find and report security issues in its Chrome software. Today, the company is upping the ante by increasing how much it will pay out.

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A growing number of major players in the tech industry are now in support for blocking ads. Apple offers this kind of feature in Safari on iOS, ASUS bundles AdBlock Plus on its mobile devices, while Three, a major UK carrier, blocks ads at the network level. And, as of today, Opera Software is also a member of this group.

Opera Software just announced that its desktop browser -- which is available on Windows, OS X and Linux -- will come with a built-in ad-blocker, which is a first for a major browser. The feature can be tested now in the Developer channel version of Opera and, once it is deemed ready for prime time, it will make its way to the public version of the browser.

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In the classic film, Back to the Future II, some children remark to the main character that his use of hands to play a classic video game is essentially uncool and lame. In the real future, maybe mind-controlled input for games and apps will become a mainstream reality, but in the interim, mice, keyboards and game pads will reign supreme for computing overall.

A less futuristic alternative to using hands is dictation -- computers converting speech to text. Solutions have been offered for quite some time, but only in recent years have they become fairly usable and reliable. Google has been a huge proponent of voice, and today, the company announces it is enhancing 'voice typing' in Docs for Chrome to be much more than just dictation.

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Copyfish is a free Chrome extension which can extract text from just about anything in a browser tab -- images, videos, documents, more -- and optionally translate it, too.

That’s great, but it’s just got even better, with new support for desktop OCR.

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While many people type with on-screen keyboards every day, let's be honest -- a physical variant can be much better. Typing on a piece of glass fails to give the user true feedback, which can lead to typos. Even worse, auto-correction on those typos can create messages that are not only wrong, but potentially embarrassing. On a smartphone in particular, the smaller screen means a smaller keyboard -- that can be frustrating.

Luckily, Bluetooth keyboards have been a godsend in this regard. While a smartphone or tablet are primarily consumption devices, a good wireless keyboard can make them productivity powerhouses too. Today, VisionTek unveils a new such Bluetooth keyboard. This wireless input device has one really cool feature that sets it apart from many -- it is waterproof.

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For many of us, a web browser is our window to the world. It is how we get news, send emails and access social media to stay in touch with friends and family. Modern browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox and Safari, are very mature and stable, lending to a positive overall web-surfing experience.

Unfortunately, today, a malicious website has been going viral. If you visit this website by either typing in the URL or clicking a link, the browser will crash by consuming huge amounts of RAM.

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From tutorials to troubleshooting, game walkthroughs, presentations or just sharing desktop activity, everyone can use a screen recorder occasionally.

This used to mean tracking down and installing some low-level native application, but there are now some surprisingly capable Chrome extensions which just might do everything you need.

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