18 Nov 08 Updated Dev Version of Google Chrome to 0.4.154.22
Google Chrome Dev 0.4.154.22
The big news for latest round of Google Chrome updates…….
No new features. This is a bug fix only release.
What do I say to that? GRRRRR
Here are the big fixes:
- Google Chrome sometimes hangs when using a site with Gears offline data enabled.
- If you don’t have Adobe Flash installed, Google Chrome shows a message with a link to install Flash. The installer would get downloaded, but failed to install Flash.
- Sometimes you had to restart Google Chrome twice after an update to get the new version.
- Google Chrome was preventing pop-up windows from opening Javascript alert messages. This broke some sites that open forms in new windows and use Javscript alert() to notify you about form errors.
- Folders you add to the bookmarks bar were not always showing up in the folder list of the Add bookmark dialog.
- Potential fix for Google Chrome crashing on Windows XP 64-bit when you open the Options dialog.
- Feature 1: Subscribe to RSS Feeds
- Feature 2: Plugin support for something like FoxMarks
That is all I have for today.
Tags: Google Chrome
31 Oct 08 More Detail on the Google Chrome Plugin Improvements
Google Chrome Plugin Improvements
When I first came upon a list of plugin improvements for Google Chrome I was thinking “Nice, we are going to get some real external plugin support for Google Chrome. This is HUGE.” Well, I was wrong, but with being wrong it is good to see some explanation of support for functionality like Adobe PDF Fast Web View and Adobe Flash. I am sure the Chrome developers have been thanking Adobe for some real good fun times.
What is Adobe Fast Web Support and what was making Google Chrome bomb on this so badly?
Adobe Fast Web Support is basically the ability to back and forth inside a huge PDF file very quickly without having to download to whole document just to get to page 144. For some reason the developers did not implement the NPAPI spec for stream seeking inside the PDF file itself. Needless to say this is implement now and seeking different parts of a PDF doc should be easier to navigate now!
On to the Adobe Flash issue and YouTube videos. When I would read about people having problems viewing YouTube videos using Google Chrome I was wondering what was going on. I wasn’t having any issues at all viewing videos. As the Google Chrome developers got to looking into this further, it turns out the video would stop playing if you moved the slider bar on the video exactly 6 times. 6 is a magic number in Google Chrome since 6 is the maximum number of HTTP connections it makes per host. Once the slider button was moved for the 6th time on a YouTube video Google Chrome was just go crazy since it couldn’t make any more HTTP connections to the host. Bottom line, the other I/O connections to the host were not getting killed and making Google Chrome very unstable and of course this has now been fixed.
It is always interesting to see and understand what goes on behind the scenes of a project like Google Chrome. To understand the inner workings of such a piece of software will make it a better browser in the future and who knows where we will see Google Chrome in the next year.
Tags: Google Chrome
30 Oct 08 New Beta Release of Google Chrome ( version 0.3.154.9 )
Google Chrome (version 0.3.154.9)
There has been a new version of Google Chrome released into the wild!!!
Version 0.3.154.9 is ready for prime time. There are some security patches applied concerning popups and address spoofing. Thank you Google!
Here are some nice bugs that have been fixed.
1. Videos are working better. Flash, windows media and Quicktime videos are working better.
2. Fixed the ‘chrome has crashed’ message when you close a tab that was showing PDF using Adobe Reader 9.
3. This one really kinda makes me think WTF!!! No longer storing https pages on the computer, but you are still able to search for https urls in the address bar. What were you thinking here Google? Thank you for fixing this!
4. The New tab, New window, and New incognito window options moved from the ‘Control the current page’ menu to the ‘Customize and control Google Chrome’ (wrench) menu. Thanks to Szymon Piechowicz for the patch.
5. The spell checker works on text input fields and underlines misspelled words. You can now add words to the spell check dictionary so they are not shown as misspelled (right click on a misspelled word and choose ‘Add to dictionary…’).
6. The download behavior for files that could run programs (exe, dll, bat, etc.) has changed. These files are now downloaded to unconfirmed_*.download files. Google Chrome asks you if you want to accept the download. Only after you click Save is the unconfirmed_*.download file converted to the real file name. Downloads that you never confirm are deleted when Google Chrome exits.
If you haven’t already downloaded Google Chrome please visit http://google.com/chrome
Still no word on a Mac or Linux version release. Let me know your thoughts on this new release and what still needs to be fixed with Google Chrome.
Tags: Google Chrome
10 Oct 08 I/O in Google Chrome
Google Chrome I/O
- The main thread of Google Chrome ( the thread that runs the entire user interface) is not allowed to do any I/O.
- All disk operations are being called from a special background thread. This helps quite a bit in not causing the whole application to bomb.
- First chrome.exe and chrome.dll are loaded.
- The preferences file is loaded (it may affect how things proceed).
- Display the main window.
- The sub-process for rendering the first tab.
- Subsystems like bookmarks are loaded
- The cache, cookies, and the Windows networking libraries are not loaded until even later when the first network request is issued.
With this much thought gone into just the startup of the browser it sounds like the Google Chrome browser will have some very nice features (ie addons) in the future that will blow us away. I am not saying Firefox is a bad browser, but there are concepts here with Google Chrome Mozilla did not take into consideration for Firefox.
So you might be asking “How come the mac and linux versions of Google Chrome are not complete yet?” Well, I do believe the basic and most important foundation for these platforms have been completed. To have a fast stable cross platform browser out there on the market is a very important step in competing and maybe eventually winning the browser war.
Tags: Google Chrome
25 Sep 08 A new version of Google Chrome dev branch
Google Chrome Dev Branch Updated
- Scrolling with laptop trackpads is fixed (Issue 4).
- Check for updates works from the About box (Issue 2362, was broken in Dev channel only).
- Removed the separate installer for Gears. Gears is now installed as a versioned component in the same directory as Google Chrome.
- You can now add words to the spellcheck dictionary. Right-click a misspelled word and choose ‘Add to dictionary…’
Tags: Google Chrome
