Chrome - page 6

Google Chrome’s app launcher, which lets Chrome users quickly find and launch their favorite web-based applications, is coming to Google Chrome for Mac OS X. Google has already begun work on porting the feature to Windows, but it’s also been found in the latest Chromium build for OS X.

Despite being a bitter rival of Apple, Google still makes some of the best iOS apps on the planet. One of my biggest gripes against Google’s apps though has been if you click a link inside Gmail, it opens up a Safari browser version of YouTube or Google Maps rather than opening the app directly.

Google has finally fixed that big annoyance by adding link support to Gmail for YouTube, Google Maps, and Chrome. The free update was just pushed out to the App Store. Now when you click on those links, the corresponding app will open up. You can turn the feature off if you want, but users who live and die by Gmail will certainly appreciate this simple feature.

Here are the release notes on the update:

Thanks to those leaked screenshots that appeared on Tuesday, we’re pretty confident that Google Babel is no longer just a rumor, but a real product that’s patiently waiting to get its grand unveiling. And according to sources that are familiar with Google’s plans, it’s worth getting excited about.

They claim Babel aims to be “everything we have ever asked for in a unified messenger service,” with cross-platform syncing and a “first class iOS experience.”

Google has confirmed that it will drop WebKit for its own rendering engine called Blink in “around 10 weeks.” The company has already begun testing Blink in Chrome Canary builds — the beta version of its popular browser — but it will rollout the change to stable Chrome builds with version 28 for both desktops and Android devices.

Safari is a great browser on iOS, as well as the default one. Chrome is also a fantastic browser, and I find myself using it more and more as it integrates well with its Mac version, with bookmarks and such synching nicely due to a unified Google sign in.

Tabbed browsing is great on both the iPad and the iPhone, and Chrome implements it a bit differently per device. The iPad has tabs similar to that of the desktop app, while the iPhone displays tabs only when you hit the little tab button in the top right corner of the screen.

You can also navigate between tabs in either version of Chrome using naught but a swipe gesture.

Android may have a larger share of the smartphone market than iOS, but Apple’s Safari browser is still king of the mobile web. According to the latest market share data from Net Applications, Safari accounted for 61.79% of the mobile web traffic throughout March.

Browsers on iOS run with a major disadvantage to Mobile Safari. Not only are they obliged to use Apple’s built-in WebKit rendering engine, but they have to use a slower version of Apple’s speedy Nitro JavaScript engine. The result? If you use any third-party browser on your iPhone or iPad, it will run slower than Safari… at least without a jailbreak.

It’s unfair, but various companies have still made excellent browsers for iOS, including Google Chrome and Opera. Mozilla, though, will not follow these company’s lead, having said at this weekend’s SXSW conference in Austin that Firefox won’t be coming to iOS any time soon.

Google updated its Chrome browser for iOS on Monday to introduce a number of small but helpful features, including quick access to your browsing history, and webpage sharing. But those who updated on jailbroken devices are finding that the app now crashes shortly after starting up, rendering it unusable.

If you’re one of those users, you’ll be pleased to know there is a simple fix. Here’s what you need to do.

Google has released a big update to its official Chrome browser for iOS devices. Chrome 25 comes with two big features: the ability to quickly recall browsing history by tapping and holding the back button, and the option to share webpages natively with the Messages app.

Over the next few days, Google says it will improve web searches in Chrome by displaying results right in the browser’s omnibox. Space will be maximized to display more results as well.

Firefox 19 is now available to download to your Mac, introducing the long-awaited PDF viewer that will allow you to open PDF files within the browser — rather than downloading them to open them in Preview. The release hasn’t yet hit Mozilla’s website, but you can get your hands on it by visiting the company’s servers.

Opera has announced that it will gradually phase out the use of Presto, its own rendering engine, in favor of WebKit this year. It will utilize Chromium, the open source project from Google, which powers the search giant’s speedy Chrome browser. Opera’s first Chromium-based smartphone browser will be previewed at Mobile World Congress later this month.

Cult of Mac’s favorite iOS Twitter client, Tweetbot, has just received a sweet new update that adds link support for 1Password and Chrome, as well as embedded previews for Flickr and Twitter’s new video service, Vine.

There’s a new Android statue on Google’s Mountain View campus today. Made from what appears to be chrome, the little guy is hanging out of Building 45, which is situated opposite the lawn where the other Android statues sit. Its arrival has sparked speculation that Google is ready to release a new version of Android, but according to the company, we’re reading too much into it.

Curious (and completely unresearched) fact: Bike geeks are often photography nerds, too. And so it makes perfect sense that Chrome — the messenger bag company — should put out a camera bag. So if you have been looking for an overprotective, heavy camera backpack with a U-Lock holster, the Niko Camera Pack could be for you.

The popular Dolphin Browser for Android and iOS has been updated today to introduce a number of handy new features. In addition to one-tap sharing to Facebook and Twitter, users can enjoy Evernote clipping, and the ability to sync bookmarks and tabs between Dolphin and their desktop browser.

As we near the end of 2012, Cult of Mac has taken a look back at some of the best iOS apps that have hit the App Store over the last 12 months. There have been some terrific releases this year, and we could have named a hundred that are well worth your hard-earned cash. But we’ve managed to whittle our list down to just ten titles that have really stood out for us this year. Check out our best apps roundup below.

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One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.

So what’s behind the door on Saturday the 15th? Arcane Legends for iOS, a free-to-play, massively multiplayer online game (MMO) that’s bound to please.

I have quite a few email addresses, and almost all of them are Gmail based. I also use a ton of different devices to check my email, including my iPhone and iPad as well as a Macbook Air and a Mac mini. That’s not even mentioning the iMac I use from time to time at my office job. With all these devices, especially the Macs, it makes sense to me to use Gmail in the web browser, so I don’t have to keep setting up email client after email client, or make sure all my filters or rules are set up the way I want them on each of the Macs I use.

What doesn’t make sense to me is how my Mac opens up Mail app when I click a mail-to link on the web, in Twitter, or on Facebook. I want my Mac to open a web browser with the web version of Gmail in it every time I click one of those types of links. Here’s how to make that happen on the big three web browsers for Mac: Safari, Chrome, and Firefox.

You’ve seen Microsoft’s famous Internet Explorer 9 commercial, right? You know, the one with that catchy dub-step song and all the crazy graphics of IE being like superhero fast? They play it on TV all the time and the at movies so you must have seen it by now. It’s not really that realistic though, so World Wide Interweb made an “honest version” of the commercial.

Bottom line: Switch to Mac and use Chrome.

One of the improvements Apple made to Safari 6.0 was to take the search and address bars and roll them into one — just like a lot of popular web browsers do. The change hasn’t been made to the mobile Safari app, though, which is puzzling, because it’s a more efficient use of screen space on a smaller display.

But there is a good reason for that omission.

While Google Maps may no longer be available as either the default iOS map app or as a standalone app of its own, the search giant’s other flagship software has been quietly updated for iPhone 5,iOS 6, and an unspecified number of “Stability and security improvements,” according to the App Store description page for the alternate iOS browser.

Man-bag. Murse. He-purse. Call it what you like, but you need one. Finally men in the U.S are following the European example and carrying their day-to-day gear in a bag instead of stuffing it all into a wallet, and then jamming that into a back pocket.

Cameras, iPads, iPhones, chargers, e-books and — yes — even wallets need a place to go, and what follows is our roundup of the best bags to put them in.

And who knows? Maybe one day your adult males will stop wearing baseball caps and shorts and start dressing like grown-ups instead?

Dr Web, a Russian antivirus software specialist, has discovered a new piece of malware that targets computers running Mac OS X and Linux. Named “Wirenet.1,” once installed the software steals all of the passwords you enter into your web browser, mail client, and other apps, and has the ability to log your keystrokes.

Dolphin is one of the best third-party browsers you’ll find on iOS, and it just got even better on the iPhone, thanks to a new design and user interface, new features, and lots of improvements in version 6.0.

When the burglar who robbed Steve Jobs’ house walked out with jewelry, computers, and Steve’s old wallet, I doubt he could have imagined one of his heisted Macs would call in the coppers. But he learned that you don’t mess with a Mountain Lion. We’ll tell you the tale on our all-new CultCast—and don’t worry—all mock turtlenecks have been returned to their proper place.

We talk rumor control, iPhone 5 design, the Olympics, and more. Then, by popular request, it’s a battle of the browsers! We’ll tell you which web-ware we love the most, and why Apple’s own app still has a big issue to fix.

Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new episodes right on your iPhone or iPad with Apple’s newly updated and freshly debugged Podcasts App.

Show notes ahead!