Posts Tagged ‘browser’

Google Chrome Gets Extension Sync

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

Saw this in ReadWriteWeb. The developer’s version of Google Chrome has implemented sync-ing for extensions. This implies that you can install Chrome extensions on your home PC and automatically have your Chrome browser on your work PC, netbook, new PCs, etc, automatically download and install your extensions. Without Chrome Extension, you would have to manually keep track and install the extensions on each PC. However, apparently this feature isn’t yet very stable and most probably isn’t going to make it to “release” anytime soon.

Currently, Chrome (stable release version) only supports Bookmark Sync, where your bookmarks can be automatically synced across different PCs.
Similar offerings include Firefox Sync. But while Firefox Sync is able to sync browsing history, stored passwords, and even open tabs, in addition to bookmarks, it is still not able to sync Firefox extensions.

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Internet Explorer shows off GPU hardware acceleration

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

It seems that the IE team is dead serious about HTML5 video.

In its latest post, the IE blog had blogged about having built a HTML5 Flickr photo album in order to assess the ability of IE9 to utilise GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to accelerate graphics processing.

Based on its tests, the IE9 team found that IE9 was able to handle speeds of 52 frames per sec (fps) while other browsers such as Google Chrome 5 Beta, Safari 4.0.5, Firefox 3.7a5pre could only manage 4 – 8 fps.

Though the example app, Flickr Explorer, seemed innocuous, and the obvious implication is just to take a stab at its rivals (note that Opera is conspicuously missing) – business as usual, a less obvious implication is that GPU hardware acceleration would be most useful for HTML5 videos. C’mon, how often does one see a fanciful and confusing user interface? ;) Although hardware accleration would also be useful for browser based games, the battle hasn’t reached there yet.

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Web browser statistics: IE dips below 60%

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

According to this CNET article, which is based on Net Applications, the browser market shares as of April 2010 are:

  • Internet Explorer – 50.95%
  • Firefox – 24.59%
  • Chrome – 6.73%
  • Safari – 4.72%
  • Opera – 2.30%

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IEBlog: HTML5 Video follow-up post

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

IEBlog has posted a follow up post in response to feedback that they have gotten from the previous post (See my personal take below).

This follow up post clarifies that H.264 is not the only format that will be supported by IE9. The rationale for focusing more on H.264 was due to the relatively clearer legal implications compared to other video codecs. Furthermore, they clarified that Flash will continued to be supported.

My personal take on this response? Smart Move. Smart move to embrace open standards and smart move to keep their options open in case things don’t turn out as they had expected. :D

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Microsoft: “The future of the web is HTML5″

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Though this IEBlog post was talking about Microsoft’s point of view on Web video formats, what caught my eye was the line “The future of the web is HTML5″.

HTML5 has garnered a lot of attention in recent months. There’s Google who had demo-ed the potential of HTML5 by Quake II to a browser without any plugins – purely HTML5; Google had also recently announced that they’ll be dropping Google Gears in favour of HTML5. There’s also Youtube who offers an option to stream their videos using HTML5 instead of Flash video player. Youtube’s HTML5 streaming is still in Beta, but you can choose to enable this option here: http://www.youtube.com/html5 (You’ll need to sign in to your account).

With Microsoft making clear their support for HTML5, we can expect further acceleration in HTML5 adoption, albeit a subset of the ambitious HTML5 proposed specifications, with priority on video and offline storage.

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Posted in Web | 2 Comments »