Google Chrome 25

Since I looked at Google Chrome 23, the search giant hasn't added a whole lot that users will notice, even though it's incremented by two version numbers. In Chrome 24, Chrome's developers tweaked JavaScript performance and bookmark searching, and added support for MathML and a few other minor HTML5 items. In the current version, Chrome 25, we get a new Speech API for voice recognition and speech-to-text, but no sites actually use this yet. We also get some protection from unwanted extension installation?something I'm running into lately with friends who were using Chrome.

Back in Chrome 23, Google finally joined all the other major Web browsers by including support for the Do Not Track privacy system first introduced by Mozilla and encouraged by the FTC. Unfortunately, most users will probably never see Chrome's Do Not Track option, since it's buried in advanced settings. The new version also adds GPU-accelerated video decoding and easier site privacy settings from the address bar. With its continual improvements and feature adds, Chrome remains the Web browser of choice, thanks to blazing speed, and ground-breaking features and leading technology support.?

Unique features like Chrome Instant, built-in Flash and PDF display, leading Web standards support, and a minimalist application window keep Chrome at the top of the browser competition?Firefox (Free, 4 stars), Internet Explorer 9 (Free, 4 stars), Opera (Free, 4 stars), and Maxthon. All those still struggle to equal Chrome's Spartan user interface, speedy operation, and leading emerging standards support.

Emulating a trend started by IE9, Chrome's speed is now boosted by hardware acceleration, the use of your PC's graphics processor to speed up operations. To this Chrome's adds support for 3D WebGL graphics that even works on older computers, such as those running Windows XP?something IE9 can't boast.

But speed involves more than pure performance results on tests. Speed also comes with new standards support, in Chrome's case, for Google's SPDY initiative, which rewrites the basic transport protocol of the Web?HTTP. SPDY eliminates redundant interactions and compresses some sent data to speed up browsing. Only sites that support the standard, like some of Google's own, will benefit from the speedup, however.

Another speeder-upper comes in the form of Chrome's many "instant" features. First, there was Google Instant, by which Web search results start appearing as soon as you start typing in the Google search box. Then came Instant Pages, in which Chrome tries to guess which link you're likely to click on next, and preload that page in the background. Another "instant" feature, pre-loads the first-proposed autocomplete site in the background when you start typing in the browser's address bar, so that it springs into view instantly when you click on the auto suggestion's entry.

Chrome boasts all the Web browser tools we've come to expect: bookmark syncing, a built-in PDF reader, and extensions. The browser's fine design, compatibility, and especially the speed have impressed the Web community enough to make Chrome the fastest growing browser in terms of market share. On this measure, it's got anywhere from 17 to 34 percent, depending on whose numbers you believe. According to one often-cited source, NetMarketShare, the browser has actually started dropping of in usage share from a high of 19.58 percent in May 2012 to 17.48 percent in January 2013. Even a source more favorable to Chrome, StatCounter, has its meteoric growth tapering off, only adding a tenth of a percent of market share in January 2013.

Speech
For a more Siri-like experience in the browser, the Speech API supported in Chrome starting with version 25 adds to the browsers previously existing support for HTML Speech Input standard introduced in version 11. Unlike HTML5 Speech Input, the new API enables scripted speech output and user input for forms, dictation, and device control. According to the W3C the standard is "not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track." The community group behind the API is headed up by Google employees, and it's not supported by any other released browser at present, and the only implementation of it relies on Google's servers. The spec allows for other translation mechanisms, but this raises the question of each browswer implementing it differently. Since both Macs and PCs have had built-in speech recognition for years, it would make sense to just use the local capability.

Google has posted a test page that shows off the new API, with no more than a microphone icon and a text box. As with pages using WebRTC access to webcam and microphone, the browser first displays a bar at the top that lets you Allow or Deny access to the mic. Once you allow it, pressing the mic and talking lets you produce text in a surprising choice of languages?even Latin! The text appears after you release the mic button, and in my quick tests the transcribed speech was surprisingly accurate.

Yes, it's a cool feature, but I worry that its real purpose is to get your words stored on Google's servers rather than just to help you interact with your computer. Then again, you?ve got to pay for all this great technology somehow.

Swift Setup
Even the setup process shows Chrome's commitment to speed: Just click the Install button on the Chrome Web page, and you'll have the browser up and running in less than a minute, with no wizard to go through and no system restart. The browser's available for Mac OS X and Linux, as well as Windows. It also updates itself automatically in the background, but with version 25, extensions are no longer silently updated. This protects users from unwanted extensions installing themselves, but it also means updates you want will be less hands-free.

Starting with version 17, a change in the first-run appearance of the browser occurred. You still saw a generous dialog box giving you the option to use Bing, Google, or Yahoo as your search engine, but the first view of the browser window asks you to sign into a Google account. This doesn?t change the behavior of the browser, but it does show Google?s increasingly solipsistic view of the Web, and raises concerns about browser tracking. On the plus side, it does give you the benefit of being able to sync your different browser settings and bookmarks on different computers (more on this later).

Chrome Instant Pages
Not to be confused with Chrome Instant (see below) or Google Instant (which works on all browser to load Google search results as you type), Chrome Instant Pages requires both Chrome and a site that supports the feature. Of the latter, there is now just one important one: Google Search. The idea is that when you perform a search in Google, the browser will pre-load the page for the result link you're most likely to click on.

In several tests on a slower Wi-Fi connection, however, I only noticed an occasional improvement for simple pages. It seemed only to work for the first result link. Heavy multimedia sites still took their time to load. On a very fast wired connection, some page result were extremely fast, but in that case, you don't really benefit from pre-loading. I saw a definitely faster load for grainger.com than in Opera on the same connection. The idea makes a lot of sense though, particularly for multipage articles, where it's most likely that the next link you'll hit is the one labeled "Next."

The only drawback: If the site guesses your next click wrong, page load could be slower than without Instant Pages, and you'll have wasted bandwidth loading a page you never visited. But this is a technique that's been done using JavaScript or HTML and CSS for years, so I'm not sure why we need a browser-specific solution to preloading pages, but Instant Pages does have the ability to load outside sites, rather than just pages of your own. If you don't like the idea of your browser loading pages before you click on a link, you can turn off the feature in the Under the Hood section of Options (accessible from the wrench icon), and uncheck "Predict network actions to improve page load performance."

Built-in Flash and PDF Support
Chrome is the only browser to come with Adobe Flash built in, rather than requiring a separate (and annoying) installation. And not having to perform the frequent required updates of the Flash plugin separately is another boon?it updates automatically with the browser. With version 10, many of the security issues with Flash (famously bemoaned by Apple's Steve Jobs) went away, thanks to running the plugin in an isolated sandbox so that it doesn't have access to critical system areas.

Chrome boasts a PDF reader as well, so you don't have to worry about installing any Adobe plugins for viewing specialized Web content. When you load a PDF, an intuitive toolbar shows when your mouse cursor is in the southeast vicinity of the browser window. From this, you can have the document fill the width of the window, show a full page, or zoom in and out. By default, you can select text for cutting and pasting, but I couldn't copy and paste images. You can print the PDF as you would any Web page.

Chrome's PDF viewer not only does what its name implies, but also serves as a print preview feature. Unlike IE's print preview, Chrome's shows up in a tab rather than its own window. But you have to go through it to print: In IE, I can just click the printer icon to send a page to the printer if I don't want to fuss with settings. I could choose between color and B&W, portrait and landscape, and choose the target printer, or print to PDF.

An Advanced button got me into the printer's own settings dialog, but this dismissed the print preview, making me have to choose Print from the menu again. But Chrome didn't let me choose a zoom percentage for the printout as Firefox and IE did, nor did it let me turn page headers on and off or choose margin sizes in a Page Setup dialog as those two did. So Chrome's print preview is a decent start, but it's still a bit behind the competition.

Interface
Minimalism has been a hallmark of Chrome since its first beta release. Tabs are above everything, and the only row below them holds the combined search/address bar, or "Omnibox." Here you can type any part of an address or page title, and the most likely site candidates will be presented in a dropdown. Optionally you can display bookmark links in a row below this. And the control buttons on the top-right of the browser window have been reduced to the absolute minimum?just one.

Google has removed the Page icon and placed some of its functions under the wrench button. Some of the Page options have been combined into buttons on one line in the menu, such as Cut, Copy, and Paste. I like what Google's done with the Zoom choice on the menu, adding plus and minus buttons that save you from having to fly out another submenu.

Another theme in the Chrome interface is that everything looks like a Web page, displaying in the main browser window, rather than in separate dialog boxes. This includes the interfaces for History, Extensions, Bookmarks, and even Options.

Mac users haven't been overlooked in the interface department, either. The browser supports OS X Lion's full screen view, along with overlay scrollbars that only appear when you're scrolling. Other more minor characteristics of the OS X "Aqua" style give Chrome on the Mac a more Mac-y appearance. Chrome also supports the new MacBooks' high-resolution Retina displays natively.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/temvDoCLwxU/0,2817,2373853,00.asp

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