Written on 19th June 2009
113 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Look, I know the majority of people reading our blog are geeks on some level and probably early adopters.
While we try not to, I’m also aware of the fact that occasionally we report on stuff your average Joe won’t understand/appreciate. But, I’ve got to be honest, I never for a second thought that this many people had no idea what a browser was.
Written on 21st May 2009
5 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Google are clearly taking the speed factor very seriously and have just upped the ante with their latest release of Google Chrome, this update is apparently 30% faster than the previous. Additionally, over 300 browser crashing bugs have been fixed making the browser more stable than ever.
According to the announcement, other features that have also been integrated include:
Improved New Tab Page: The most requested feature from users was the ability to remove thumbnails from the New Tab page. Now you can finally hide that embarrassing gossip blog from the Most Visited section.
Full Screen Mode: If you’ve ever given a presentation or watched a large video using Google Chrome, you might have wished you could use every last pixel on your screen for the content. Now you can hide the title bar and the rest of the browser window by hitting F11 or selecting the option in the Tools menu.
Form Autofill: Filling out your information in forms over and over again can be tedious. Form autofill helps by showing information you’ve previously entered into the same form fields automatically. If at any point you want to clear out your information, that’s easy to do from the Tools menu.
Below is a video from Chrome Product Manager Brian Rakowski detailing the last update:
The major update we’re all waiting for is the OS X release of the browser. According to reports, the browser will be available towards the end of this summer, but you are able to test early versions of the browser here.
Written on 15th May 2009
1 COMMENT Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
It’s no secret Firefox’s major competitive advantage lies in the thousands of extensions built by dedicated developers across the globe. The extensions make the browser perform functionality beyond the realms of virtually every browser out there, until now.
The latest developer channel releases of Chrome offer improved APIs and tools for developers who are keen on developing add-on for Google’s browser.
As WebMonkey points out, there are two current extensions developed by Google themselves. One shows the inbox message count at the bottom of the browser window and the other makes it a piece of cake to subscribe to RSS feeds in Google Reader.
We’re a long way from the catalogue currently available at Mozilla.org, but frankly the sooner Google get started the better.
To get started with developing for Chrome, you’ll need to:
Make sure you’re receiving updates from Chrome’s developer channel. If you haven’t already, download the Chrome Channel Changer and switch channels to “developer.”
Launch Chrome from the command line adding the --enable-extensions flag to the end of the application path.
Written on 7th April 2009
0 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
If you’re desperate, I mean really really desperate, you can try out an unofficial Google Chrome release for the Mac today. There’s no flash, it’s not as fast as it will be and no preferences either…but it’s usable.
Manu J, a “Mac and Linux enthusiast and technophile” lists all the functionality available. He plans to update the build “every two weeks, or if a new update is published to the mac status page.” .
Written on 3rd March 2009
18 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Flock, the social-media esque browser is abandoning it’s Firefox background for Google’s open source Chrome browser platform according to sources of Mike Arrington’s at Techcrunch.
The browser has raised $30 million dollars to date, releasing their latest build in October 2008. Although the browser received some levels of uptake amongst the tech crowd, not enough to see common usage or any infiltration into mainstream.
According to Arrington, sources have claimed Flock have decided to abandon Firefox as they have “become frustrated with Mozilla’s lack of attention to Flock’s needs”…hence, the move to Chrome.
Chrome however is still only a Windows based browser, although linux and mac versions are in (early stage) development. It is highly likely that all versions of Chrome, Windows or otherwise, will still lag behind the years of development which have gone into Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer…undoubtedly all this will have an impact on Flock’s own browser ambitions. Is this a brave move or a silly one?
I can’t help but feel this is very much like starting from scratch, or pre-scratch even.
**Update from Flock CEO Shawn Hardin**
It’s important to clarify a couple of things. We haven’t ceased development efforts on the Mozilla platform. Our upcoming release of Flock 2.1 is built on the Mozilla platform. Having said that, the browser space is heating up, and we’ve seen a variety of exciting technologies emerge over the last several months that are appealing.
We always have and will continue to make architectural decisions that balance what’s best for our users and what’s best for Flock as a business. This has resulted in a healthy, growing user base and business for Flock, and we expect this to continue in 2009. In fact, with over seven million downloads almost entirely from word of mouth, Flock enjoys a highly satisfied user base with consistently over 92% customer satisfaction, very strong net promoter scores, and an average of four hours of usage per day.
With a continuing focus on user-centered browser innovation, our team is in active research and development on a range of exciting new enhancements to Flock. It is still far too early to comment on anything specific, but we are very excited about this design phase…
Written on 13th February 2009
6 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Mike Pinkerton, the man behind the excellent Camino web browser for the Mac is also the man behind the Mac release of Google Chrome.
On his blog, he made available the first shot of the UI for the Mac release of the Google browser, and although it’s very basic – we’re already excited.
The shot below is actually of the first time he ran Chrome and loaded a webpage.
Pinkerton points out, one of the major hurdles behind the Mac version of Chrome is allowing for individual tabs to crash yet the entire browser to keep on running. Webkit, the engine behind the browser simply doesn’t run that way which has meant a large amount of time devoted to figuring that out.
Below is another (just) released shot of the browser which appears whenever a page isn’t able to load.
Google’s new Browser Chrome hasn’t been making much of a dent in the browser markets yet. And they don’t have to to. Google seems patient and will slowly but decidedly keep working on their product until it starts gaining momentum. This is a market they want, and should, be in. Read this great background article at Wired for some insights into their plans and history.
a few months ago we visited an Internet start-up where the CEO told us a funny story of how one of his developers used an Ad Blocker. He took the developer aside and explained to him that their whole business, his company and his salary depended on income on ads. He explained to the developer that if he wanted to work in this business it would be odd to fight the economic systems that pay for your food. The developer ended up removing the ad blocker.
The reason I’m telling you now is that Google, a company that depends on ads for 95% of its revenue, is now inviting developers to come up with an ad blocker for Chrome. Really.
Listed in the Chromium Developer Documentation are several references to an ‘AdBlocker’. Is is part of “some types of extensions that we’d like to eventually support” in Chrome, according to the document. Now I know the principles behind innovation and cannibalizing your assets but I’m still surprised that Google would invite people to build one for Chrome.
What happens if the feature becomes the number one Chrome add-on, and Chrome becomes the number one browser on the web? A web without ads? Does Google secretly think that ads are just a temporary way to make money until they can start charging for their products? Or is this just a product of a developer who wrote a technical document and published it without checking with PR or Management?
Written on 13th November 2008
0 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Google’s latest developer version of chrome has been released and includes a far more feature rich bookmarking manager.
With the latest version, available for download if you’ve subscribed to the Chrome developer channel, you’ll find you can search bookmarks, create folders and drag & drop bookmarks to new locations.
Of course, this is highly unlikely to excite devoted Firefox users but for those devoted to Google and Chrome, this has been a highly requested feature.
There are further less signifcant features outlined in the release notes found here.
Interesting news about Chrome. Colin Barras, online technology reporter for Short Sharp Science, has been keeping an eye on the Global Marketshare Statistics of Clicky (the web analytics service we use, approve, and recommend). He noticed that the Google browser peaked when it was the talk of the town, with a 3.1% share. Yet since then it has dropped to 1.5%, sometimes even 1.4%.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (around 60%) and Mozilla Firefox (around 30%) caress their steady figures. Barras expects Google to “have a job on its hands if Chrome is ever to rival Firefox, let alone Internet Explorer”. He also notes that the Chrome download link disappeared of the minimalistic Google frontpage – for reasons unknown.
To me it all makes perfect sense.
Google launches a beta version of a browser.
People check it out.
Google has enough test users and takes the link off the frontpage.
The folks who love Chrome wait for a stable version and start using their old browsers again.
Some hardcore fans stay.
Google launches a new kick-ass version and resumes its quest for world domination.
Written on 19th June 2009
113 COMMENTS 
It’s no secret Firefox’s major competitive advantage lies in the thousands of extensions built by dedicated developers across the globe. The extensions make the browser perform functionality beyond the realms of virtually every browser out there, until now.
Written on 2nd December 2008
Written on 14th October 2008
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
