Google Chrome Browser: Two Years in Making, Available Now

Looks like Google has taken one more shortcut to providing best service to its fans: as of yesterday, Google’s very own Internet browser codenamed Google Chrome, is available for download.

What is Google Chrome?

My first impression is that Google Chrome is a slick ultra-light browser with minimalistic yet intuitive interface and a minimal set of settings. There’s no fixed status bar, there’s no main menu, there’s just the address bar (called Omnibox because it also combines a search bar).

The tabbing works very smoothly, and overall you kind of feel there’s something missing simply because there’s only the page content and a very subtle set of controls. You get used to such a simplicity very quickly, though.

Here’s how Google Chrome looks:

Google Chrome

Performance of Google Chrome vs Firefox

I haven’t noticed much of a performance boost yet, but maybe it’s just because I need to play with this new browser a bit more. All the pages load quickly, but I’ve yet to see the ones which load much better than in my Firefox. ZDnet did some testing already and it shows that Google Chrome is quite fast.

What’s really cool is the really simple interface and intuitive searching – as you type a URL, Omnibox tries to guess what website you’re trying to get to. Works like a charm for many well known websites!

One of the main reasons Google came up with its own browser is performance of Google services and apps in modern browsers. Firefox is not ideal, although with a bit of tweaking you can get it to work pretty fast. Is it very likely that Google Chrome, being a highly specialized product, will be the best for GMail, Google Calendar and other services – but it may take some getting used to. Google also claims Chrome will be better for most websites, so it does seem like the optimizations will have a generic nature rather than a Google-specific services customization – I think it’s great news.

That’s it! Have a look at the browser itself, I think it’s a great move for Google, but would hate to see it as a direct competition to my favourite Firefox. I think the fact that these two products both called web browsers still doesn’t make a fair apples-to-apples comparison because Firefox has got quite a history and is much more universal as it is. I’m a long way from changing my preference for Firefox to any other browser, but must admit that Google Chrome seems to have done quite a neat and easy to use browser – time will show what Google will make of it.

See also:

September 3, 2008 · Filed Under blog, SEO

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Perfect Blogger Redesign 2008

After the last round of reviewing my online projects, I’ve decided to change not only focus but WordPress theme for PerfectBlogger.

As of today, this website will have Brian Gardner‘s Vertigo theme. My main reason for changing the look of Perfect Blogger is to declutter the pages of this blog, so have a look and let me know!

August 22, 2008 · Filed Under blog

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Wordze Keyword Research – Only $4 for July 2008!

For all of you who were hoping to give Wordze keyword research service a try, here’s your next chance!

If you register for Wordze between now and July 14th, you’ll have to pay only $4 for the month of July, with $38.98 for every month after (you can cancel at the end of July if you change your mind).

I find Wordze to be one of the most useful and affordable tools online, and thanks to offers like this almost everyone can give it a try at virtually no cost.

July 10, 2008 · Filed Under SEO

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Firefox 3 Memory Usage Better Than Other Browsers

Firefox 3 logo

Sam Allen from Dot NET Pearls has written a great program to observe the memory taken up by each of the 5 most popular browsers. His experiment was to taken snapshots of memory usage numbers every 3 seconds for a period of 3 hours. The graphs posted on his Firefox 3 Memory Benchmarks and Comparison page are quite interesting, particularly showing that Firefox 3 is ahead of all the competitors with its rather stable and humble memory requirements.

I’ve been using Firefox 3 full-time since RC2, and must say I’m really impressed with its stability and performance.

Link: Firefox 3 Memory Benchmarks via Slashdot: Real-World Firefox 3 Memory Usage.

June 25, 2008 · Filed Under firefox

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Firefox 3 Download Day!

Just a reminder: today, June 17th 2008, is the official Firefox 3 download day – Mozilla foundation attempts to set a new Guinness record by having the latest release of Firefox downloaded the most within 24 hours.

You still have the time to make a pledge and download it: Firefox 3 download day.

June 17, 2008 · Filed Under firefox

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Popular JavaScript libraries now hosted by Google

Just wanted to highlight this information for you, although it’s not exactly news – AJAX Libraries API from Google allows everyone to access the latest versions of most popular JavaScript frameworks right from Google servers.

What is AJAX Libraries API?

If you were looking for a way to simplify your usage of JavaScript frameworks, Google has got you covered: AJAX Libraries API is an architecture which hosts most popular open source JavaScript libraries on Google servers and thus make them highly available to use by any of your pages.

Why use AJAX libraries hosted by Google?

There’s a few advantages to offloading JavaScript libraries onto Google’s servers. Here’s my list:

- no headaches with upgrading your JavaScript libraries – they’re updated automatically so your pages are always using the latest and greatest versions available

- universally available – you can access JavaScript frameworks using the same methods from any pages of yours

- high availability – like everything else on Google servers, your scripts will be safe, fast and highly available – distributed among many Google servers and probably delivered to you from the geographically closest location

What libraries are currently available?

Here are the ones you can start using right now:

The full list of libraries available through AJAX Libraries API can be found here: Google AJAX Libraries, I presume it will be updated as more libraries get hosted there.

Via: Google Hosts Popular JavaScript Libraries @ Google System blog

June 12, 2008 · Filed Under blog

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Killer Domains ebook from DailyBlogTips

Daniel Scocco from DailyBlogTips has recently finished his first e-book called Killer Domains. I’ve just read it and can definitely recommend it to anyone who considers buying domains.

What is Killer Domains about?

This is an e-book full of useful tips on researching and buying domain names. If you come from blogging background, you surely know what it is. For everyone else, a domain is simply a short name for your website – like perfectblogger.com, for example.

There are many domain zones, like .com or .net, and every country has it own domain zone as well – like .ie (Ireland) or .de (Germany). The choice is yours, but the Killer Domains ebook helps you make this decision.

Domain name prefixes and suffixes

Domains industry has been around for many years, this means that most of domains with single English words are already taken. But if you apply a bit of creativity and use one of common prefixes or suffixes, this may help you get the domain name you’re really happy with.

Daniel’s e-book offers hundreds of prefixes and suffixes for you to use when brainstorming your domain name, and also gives you links to some of the best online tools to do the same automatically.

Keyword and domain research

When considering a domain name, you need to make sure you not only get the words best matching your business idea, but also that you pick the right words – uniquely identifying your niche and possibly the most popular for search engines.

Again, Killer Domains has a great intro for those who have yet to explore the wonders of keyword research – it explains why such a research is important, and links to relevant online tools.

Avoid domain pinchers!

Quite a few domain research websites sell their search query data to third parties. Such parties then analyze the data and purchase the most popular domains. I’ve had a number of cases when I was doing a research, had the best options identified, and then they were snapped away by someone else in a matter of hours.
To avoid such frustration, it’s important to use only trusted research tools, and Daniel shares some of them with you.

Killer Domains: should you buy it?

It costs only 17$, and will mostly likely be totally worth it. It’s a 55 page e-book packed with really useful information presented in a simple way. I totally recommend it to anyone who’s getting started with their first domain or website.

Head over to Daniel’s page about Killer Domains ebook about it or simply follow this link to buy your copy: Get Killer Domains e-book.

May 3, 2008 · Filed Under Reviews

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WordPress 2.5 Release

The wait is over, and WordPress 2.5 is finally released! Compared to the previous 2.3 branch, this new release brings an amazing pack of improvements and additions, and it looks like 2.5 is going to be one of the most interesting WordPress releases of the past years.

WordPress

There is an excellent highlight of all the main features on the WordPress blog: WordPress 2.5 Brecker.

New WordPress 2.5 features

The things I’m really looking forward to try are the following:

- new dashboard – apart from cleaner look and improved usability, it also supports widgets for expanded functionality

- multi-file upload – apparently with a progress bar!

- fully integrated tag management – adding/renaming/removing any tags is a native functionality with this release, so no additional plugins are needed

- using newer version of TinyMCE (that’s the fancy editor with plenty of useful toolbars you see when creating a page or a post) promises fixes to many complex HTML issues (working with lists and paragraphs has traditionally been painful for me), and there’s a no-distractions mode I really look forward to – minimum of interface controls so that you can fully concentrate on the content

There are many more improvements like automatic plugin upgrades and built-in image gallery functionality, which many of you will find useful as well, but I’ve yet to look into them.

All in all, I think it’s the most exciting upgrade, WordPress team once again did a great job.

Wait no longer: download WordPress 2.5 and get busy with your upgrades!

More links on WordPress 2.5

March 30, 2008 · Filed Under wordpress

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Getting Ready For WordPress 2.5

As you probably know, WordPress 2.5 RC1 is available for a preview download, and the final WordPress 2.5 can be released in the next few days. Since it brings a traditional ton of useful improvements, it probably makes sense to see how ready your current blog is for the new major upgrade.

Useful links for WordPress 2.5

Here are just a few links you may find useful:

March 24, 2008 · Filed Under blog

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Wordze Easter Weekend Special

Wordze Keyword Research

Wordze is doing yet another campaign: to celebrate Easter, this whole weekend you can register and get your first month with Wordze for just $15 instead of the regular $45 price.

To avail of this offer, just follow this link: Wordze – first month for just $15.

March 22, 2008 · Filed Under blog

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