Yesterday, as well as the run up to it, proved a hectic day for tech fans and news sites alike- it was Apple’s annual Press Conference. What with the rumours and the (eventual) release of the Apple iPad, it meant that many of you may have missed out on other interesting news that day. So here is a briefing of the best that you might not of picked up on:
1. Virgin Media want to monitor music piracy Virgin Media have been debating cutting user’s internet connections if they believed copyright infringement was happening on the account. However, these plans have already been under fire by Privacy International, a human rights watchdog. The group noted that Virgin were using Cview, software to monitor the online activity of their customers- including illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. 40% of online activity would be analysed as part of a trial.
Alexander Hanff of Privacy International told the BBC in a statement: “Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) intercepting communications is a criminal offence regardless of what you do with the data.” He also added the European Commission have since been informed.
Feedly, the self-billed ‘fun magazine-like start page’ has officially launched their Google Chrome browser extension. The plugin is available to download with the developer builds of Chrome across Windows, Mac and Linux. (more…)
Google has just added links to their soon to be launched Chrome Extensions on the home page of the Mac developer builds as well as Bookmarks sync. Whilst the extensions link is not yet live, users can access and install the sample extensions for Chromium here.
Currently available extensions include a Gmail checker, a handy RSS subscribe toolbar icon and Chromium BuildBot monitor.
While Google Chrome has become a relatively mature and reliable browser for Windows, the Mac version has been lagging behind
There have been the nightly developer builds, called Chromium, but they weren’t recommended for regular use.
The latest developer build, launched this week, takes things to another level though with just about everything an everyday browser needs finally in place.
So, how does Chrome for Mac shape up? While it’s still classed as a developer preview version, the good news is you could probably use this as a regular browser. As a long-time Firefox user, Chrome is a breath of fresh air to me. It’s fast, can handle many, many tabs without sign of slowdown and I’ve encountered no freezes or crashes.
Besides its speed, Chrome has a key advantage over other browsers. Each tab runs as its own process meaning if a web app crashes it only takes down that tab, not the whole browser. The wide selection of themes for skinning the look of the browser present in the Windows version are here too. If you want a Mariah Carey themed browser, it’s yours. There are lots of much more tasteful options too.
It’s not perfect yet; while this latest version supports Quicktime and printing for the first time there are still a few features missing that may make you grit your teeth. (more…)
Google has struck a deal with Sony that will see all of Sony’s computers come pre-installed with Chrome, Google’s new browser.
This is a first for Google, but the search/web services giant aims to partner with many more manufacturers.
Your average person simply hasn’t even heard of Google Chrome and with the browser holding onto only 2.84% of the browser market, the company has a lot of work to do. Internet Explorer leads the way with 66.97%, Firefox in second with 22.98%, then Safari, Chrome and others follow, each with less than 4% of the market.
I’ve been test driving the latest Chrome for Mac builds, available for download here. The one area of development I’m happy to say has seen improvements is the bookmarking manager. With the advent of social bookmarking tools, you’d be surprised just how important a browser’s core bookmarking system is – particularly the bookmarks bar.
It’s actually the javascript bookmarklets that have until now, made Chrome unusable for me. I use the Posterous, Friendfeed and many other JS bookmarklets all the time. I’d assume many of you do too, whether you realise it or not. The Chrome for Mac night buildings, or ‘Chromium’, does in fact let you use bookmarklets. Unfortunately, you can’t drag and drop them onto the bookmarks bar just yet but (more…)
A few days ago Opera released the first beta of Opera 10. Today, Google pretty silently published very early Google Chrome builds for Mac OS X and Linux. According to Google’s Chrome team blog, this very early build is not intended for download – which obviously, I could not resist – because it lacks essential stuff: The ability to watch YouTube videos, privacy settings and changing your search provider to bing.
Google’s browser is based on the open source Chromium initiative and ships with Google’s V8 JavaScript engine (also open sourced). My personal browsing experience with this dev channel release is quite fine, fast and clean rendering and speedy JavaScript execution. The absence of support for Adobe Flash and some occasional crashes are okay for such an early release.
We should expect Google to release updates on a bi-weekly schedule. Download your copy:
Google Chrome build for Mac OS X. Google Chrome build for Linux.
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.
In an attempt to make the browser cool, Google have released a number of video shorts promoting Google Chrome in manner equivalent to Apple’s iPod ads (watch the first one, you’ll see what I mean).
11 of them are currently live on the Google Chrome Channel on YouTube, some of them are particularly good (shared below). I cannot wait for the Mac release, speed it up Google!
1. Virgin Media want to monitor music piracy
Apple, apple press conference, eHarmony, google chrome, ipad, lifehacker, malware, privacy international, twitter, virgin media
While Google Chrome has become a relatively mature and reliable browser for Windows, the Mac version has been lagging behind
Google has struck a deal with Sony that will see all of Sony’s computers come pre-installed with Chrome, Google’s new browser.
I’ve been test driving the latest Chrome for Mac builds, available for 
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.
In an attempt to make the browser cool, Google have released a number of video shorts promoting Google Chrome in manner equivalent to Apple’s iPod ads (watch the first one, you’ll see what I mean).
