Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. Read about why we built a browser.

They introduced Chrome using a cartoon, which not only acts as a clever viral marketing tactic (accidently leaked, oRLY?), but it also explains why they released their own browser and how it tries to improve the internet experience for people, making complex information simple.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff - the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Chrome is based on WebKit, the same HTML engine powering Apple’s Safari browser, and a new V8 JavaScript engine. While the last couple of years we’ve seen browsers adhere more and more to WebStandards (especially improved CSS support, finally in IE8), we might get confronted again with JavaScript incompatibilities (client-side storage, text-node serialization, timer delay,…) due to these new JavaScript engines being introduced. Although these JavaScript engines do support the ECMA language standards, they do a lot more under the hood to improve JavaScript performance.

And you have to wonder, with a User-Agent string like Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/0.2.149.27 Safari/525.13, is the User-Agent still useful?

Google doesn’t make any money out of their search, nor with this browser, they make money with advertisements. So the question begs itself, will we see adverts in Chrome? Will it be limited to Google Search? Questions being answered on Matt Cutt’s blog, but you have to wonder, even if you are using an other search provider, they could still pick up anything you do in Chrome, what you’re searching for, what you click on, as if you were using their search. Not really, it is open source, and it is ‘easy’ to see what exactly it is doing.

I’ve been using it at work this week, and I’m glad my stuff still works (contrary to the new IE8 beta 2, which I’ll need some more time investigating). I like most of its chrome’s aesthetics, its simplicity, but I really don’t like the baby blue though. The incognito mode looks a little bit nicer. I like the task manager and ‘stats for nerds‘, and the WebKit based dev tools. Also try about:memory, about:stats, about:histograms, about:internets, and about:crash in the ‘Omnibar’.

I’m also amazed at how Windows app development has stagnated so much since, well, ever. I mean, Chrome doesn’t look like a Windows app, same as Apple Safari doesn’t look like a Windows app, and I mean that in a good sense. Same reason I like AIR-based apps which don’t look like drab Windows apps.

I wasn’t using Safari all that much on Windows, but I might use Chrome a bit more (even when the Mac version is released, so I can use it at home), though Firefox (and the upcoming 3.1) will still remain my main browser. And that always has been the main problem. Sometimes, for some people, just good is good enough. That’s why we’re still stuck with lots of IE6 visitors. But the might of Google may well change things, by paying hardware vendors (the HPs, Dells in the world) to have Chrome as the default browser on their hardware, same way they do to have their browser toolbar included.

The Mac and Linux versions are in the works. The cartoon talks about extension, but currently they don’t offer any.

Google Chrome is another option for people. It forces the other browser developers to take notice. Though it looks like we’re heading for another browser war this summer (hey, I’m down under), this one will take the web forward. Progression is good, and we really need a big leap now. Bring ‘em on, all at once.

So, who is today’s startup Google, and where will they be in 10 years time?

PS: Two weeks ago Microsoft released their IE8 beta 2 to the broader public, as well as Apple releasing Safari 4 beta for developers, and Firefox has a 3.1 version available too. Good times!

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

Google X

Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions.

Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs.

Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility.

Extend the browser functionality easily.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Three minutes into the video, a demo of Craigslist and mapping a number of rental unit addresses, and the note that this would take advantage of microformatted data, exactly like my own little project, Mapanui.

You can extend Ubiquity by writing your own commands (and share them with the world), using JavaScript. Ubiquity also uses the fab jQuery library (obviously) for rapid JavaScript development (though not using $ but jQuery for compatibility).

A nice push for microformats and an Open Web.

Something to keep an eye on, and look forward to full Firefox 4 integretion.

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

Mozilla Ubiquity 0.1

LinkedIn is to mark up user profile pages with microformats. Yahoo search could then understand the content and relationships between pieces of content and present that data in an intelligent way in Yahoo search.

Last week then Yahoo introduced a number of changes to its default search experience to add more structured data to results using SearchMonkey widgets.

Yahoo SearchMonkey is a key part of Yahoo’s attempts to embrace the semantic web and open standards in general.

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

Yahoo SearchMonkey Apps online

It talks about Identity, Personality and Profile, using Microformats like XFN and hCard.

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

On Portable Social Networks

John Resig discusses a number of useful benefits.

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

Custom non-visible data in HTML 5

Pluribo, a Firefox plugin which creates instant summaries of Amazon user reviews. Some Amazon products have 10-100’s of reviews. Pluribo gives a summary by analyzing all these reviews. Currently only available for Amazon, you could see more, potential interactions with other web applications, think StructuredBlogging, or a summery of 100’s of comments on a blog post. Ars Technica has a nice overview.

HealthMap, a comprehensive mashup which ends up into a global disease alert map, on a country or province level. It filters disease news from Google News, the WHO and online discussion groups. Wired has more.

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

HealthMap and Pluribo

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

BBC removes hCalendar Microformat from programmes page

“A special widget which integrates a smart command line interface and a bunch of additional services directly into your website to perform common web-tasks”

PodiPodi offers an alternative UI to your website for power-users. By hitting a shortcut like Ctrl+z you get a jQuery powered command line widget which gives you additional information on the site, a sitemap, Flickr pictures, google search,… Have a play at their playground.

“PodiPodi” doesn’t really roll of the tongue very well though…

An alternative to PodiPodi (which requires web developers to integrate this into their site) could be a Firefox extention like Catalog which puts the same powerful command line interface under your fingers, but then for every webpage you visit. Unfortunately active development seem to be stalled.

Both apps show the power of extending your website under the hood, giving your visitors more power on how they navigate and use your website.

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

PodiPodi/Catalog web-based CLI

This is Mark Up As An API, a blog on using… markup (HTML) as an API, and its relevant technologies like microformats, RDF, etc… I’m backposting a couple of articles as I started out collecting links somewhere last year, and did a preso at BarCamp Sydney for a couple of people.

So for now, I’d say subscribe to the feed, and keep an eye out for new post later.

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

Hold your horses

By supporting semantic web standards, Yahoo! Search and site owners can bring a far richer and more useful search experience to consumers. For example, by marking up its profile pages with microformats, LinkedIn can allow Yahoo! Search and others to understand the semantic content and the relationships of the many components of its site.

By getting this out in the open, maybe other search engines (think “G”) might come out and proclaim their love for the semantic web?

You can try it out for yourself at Yahoo! Microsearch.

Post from Jean-Jacques Halans MarkupAsAnApi blog.

Yahoo! Search understands semantics