Earlier this month, Chrome Duplex’s bottom toolbar gained several shortcuts to make the design more useful. The latest iteration in Chrome Canary now addresses a major issue, with this possible redesign to the Android browser finally taking shape.
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For the past several months, Google has been working on major redesigns for Chrome on Android. Chrome Home switched to a bottom bar, but was canceled in favor of Chrome Duplex earlier this year. A recent version of Chrome Canary details Google’s latest look for the interface.
The Internet has matured quite a lot over the years, and while websites now load faster, look nicer, and offer more features than ever before, a lingering frustration is when a video automatically plays without your permission.
Thankfully, according to Googler François Beaufort, you’ll soon be able to mute entire websites so that you don’t have to be bombarded with videos you have absolutely no interest in.
At the beginning of June, Google announced that it was working on an “ad filter” for Chrome that would be fully available for all users starting in 2018. The ad filter’s goal is to block advertisements on websites that are considered to be intrusive, and if you’re running Chrome Canary or Chrome Dev on Android, it looks like you can test out the ad filter now.
The Google Pixel has a convenient Night Light feature that can automatically tint the screen to reduce eyestrain during evening hours. Chrome OS is now testing a near identical feature in the latest Canary channel, which also features new power management controls.
Chrome 47 removed the rarely used notification center from desktops last year, but many Mac users have long wondered why the browser doesn’t use the native OS X center for notifications. Now, it appears Google is actively working on adding that feature and a preview is available in the Canary channel. Additionally, Chrome Dev for Android has removed merge tabs and has a redesigned bookmarks widget…
Google has a history of leaving small Easter eggs in its products and recently the search giant snuck a small gem into its Chrome browser. Discovered by Chrome evangelist François Beaufort, there’s a small endless runner game hidden in the latest version of Chrome’s Canary build. In order to launch the game, you’ll need to take your system offline and attempt to connect to a webpage.
Google recently released a 64-bit version beta version of Chrome for Windows 7 and 8 users and for an encore the company has turned its efforts towards Apple’s OS X. The search giant has silently added 64-bit support to its Chrome Canary and Dev channels for Mac users. If you’re running the latest version of Canary on your Mac, the software should read as 64-bit capable in its About tab.
Today, Google announced 64-bit Chrome support for Windows 7 and 8 users. Available through Mountain View’s Canary and Dev channels, these new additions will provide users with an enhanced browsing experience that improves Chrome’s speed, security and stability. In order to take advantage of Google’s new offerings, you’ll need to have a system capable of running 64-bit software, so make sure your setup is up to the task before clicking that install button.
An experimental feature in Chrome that is set to prevent phishing attacks, may be backfiring, according to security firm PhishMe. Google is in the process of testing an “Origin Chip” that hides the view of a website’s full URL. This new setup instead displays the domain name of the site being visited, along with a search bar available for fast access. The idea is that only displaying a site’s domain name is far less distracting than a lengthy URL.
Google and Microsoft are rivals in just about every sense of the word, but every now and then these two juggernauts play nice with each other. Case in point, the newest version of Chrome Canary features a new tab page loaded with Bing’s famous images for people who use Google’s browser, but prefer Microsoft’s search engine.
There have been indications for a long time that Google Now was eventually coming to the Chrome browser on the desktop. Via the Google Operating System Blog, the service has finally surfaced in the most recent release of Chrome Canary (Google’s name for the app’s ‘alpha’ channel builds).
As expected, Google Now in Chrome closely mirrors Google Now on Android. The contextually-relevant cards (which show information such as weather, news or upcoming flights) appear in Chrome’s Notification Center on the desktop. This area be found in the Window’s taskbar or the Mac’s menubar, represented by a bell icon.
Google has added automatic blocking of malware from the latest ‘Canary‘ build of its Chrome browser.
Bad guys trick you into installing and running this kind of software by bundling it with something you might want, like a free screensaver, a video plugin or—ironically—a supposed security update. These malicious programs disguise themselves so you won’t know they’re there and they may change your homepage or inject ads into the sites you browse […]
In the current Canary build of Chrome, we’ll automatically block downloads of malware that we detect.
Confusingly, Google has four versions of its Chrome browser available at any one time: the official, public release; a developer version; a beta version, for those who want early access to new features; and Canary. Canary is essentially a beta version that installs as a second browser, so you can use that most of the time and fall back to the official version if something doesn’t work.
While not all Canary features make it into the official build, this one seems likely to – and would make Chrome the ideal browser to recommend to any of your less-techy family and friends who cheerfully download anything and everything, usually identifiable by the fact that the top half of their browser window comprises half a dozen different toolbars …
BrowserFame spotted a feature in the Canary (development) version of Chrome that would allow parents and schools to created ‘supervised user’ accounts whose access to the web can be controlled by a master account.
The approach is an extension of the standard accounts available in Chrome, allowing different users to have different settings and to be automatically signed-in to Google services …
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[youtube=http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReH7zzj5GPc&w=670&h=411]
Google has been at the forefront of the HTML5 revolution which has been unfolding on the web. Look no further than the Chrome Experiments page which contains dozens of advanced HTML5 examples that will give you a pause. I blogged about some of the must-see examples which knocked my socks off. Nothing could prepare me for the latest demo. This stuff has just considerably raised the bar of what’s possible on the web.
The combination of HTML5/WebGL code and a GPU-enhanced browser with hardware-accelerated graphics like Google Chrome is what makes possible “Rome: 3 Dreams of Black”, a collaborative music video from Jack White, Norah Jones, Daniele Luppi and Danger Mouse. It’s the best WebGL showcase I’ve seen so far. Check it out in its entirety below the fold.
