Chrome

Chrome iOS update brings improved handling of search queries and other treats

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 28, 2014

Google has issued a brand new Chrome iOS browser version, bringing out several nice-to-haves and refinements to its popular Safari alternative for the iPhone and iPad.

In addition to the usual stability improvements and bug fixes, the new Chrome build 35.0.1916.38, available free in the App Store, improves upon its handling of right-to-left input method for Arabic and Hebrew in Omnibox, which in Google's parlance stands for the browses combined search and address box.

More importantly, the app will now display your exact search term in Omnibox instead of the long search query URL, just like Apple’s Safari. And upon landing on Google's redesigned mobile search results page, the browser now makes it easy to refine your search queries and view more results...

Read More

You can now open local Mac files with supporting Chrome apps, right in Finder

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 9, 2014

Fans of Google Chrome who run the browser's Canary edition can now associate local files with Chrome apps, right in their Mac's Finder. What this does is it lets you open local documents using Chrome apps that run in the browser. This is quite handy if you've long gone Google and depend on various web apps. Chrome's Canary build is aimed at early adopters who are willing to experiment with upcoming new features. But don't worry, Canary won't mess up your existing Chrome settings...

Read More

Chrome for iOS updated with new feature tour, omnibox improvements

Cody Lee ∙ April 30, 2014

Google rolled out an update for its mobile Chrome browser today, bringing the app to version 34.0.1847.18 (c'mon Google). The update includes a new 'feature tour,' which offers new users an overview of the browser, and other minor enhancements.

Among those enhancements is a tweak to Chrome's omnibox. Autocomplete in the omnibox now supports right-to-left languages, which should appease some international users. There's also the standard cluster of security, stability, and bug fixes...

Read More

Drag and drop iTunes tracks to Google Play Music using new Chrome lab feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 26, 2014

Google's official Play Music app lets you access both Google’s subscription-based All Access and standard music services on your iPhone and iPad, but Apple-imposed restrictions prevent your iOS device from actually uploading song files to Google's music locker in the cloud.

Desktop users can upload their music using Google's Music Manager application for Mac and Windows PCs, but now there's a ridiculously easy way of adding those iTunes tracks to Google Play, using only the Chrome browser.

Now available in the Labs section of the Google Play Music web interface, and only on the Chrome web browser, this nicely done web app lets you upload individual tracks to the cloud literally by dragging and dropping them from iTunes, Windows Media Player or folders...

Read More

Google Now cards now rolling out on desktop in Chrome for Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 30, 2023

Rich desktop notifications have been available in Google’s Chrome browser for the Mac for some time now, provided you were on the Canary channel where Google hosts early and unstable alpha releases of its browser. The normals, however, had to wait until desktop notifications for the Now cards made their way into the stable Chrome channel.

According to Google itself, that day is today - people on stable Chrome releases should start seeing Google Now alerts being pushed to their Macs and PCs. The handy alerts are nested right inside the browser’s notification center that sits in your Mac’s status bar (bottom-right if you're using Windows)...

Read More

Geohot wins $150,000 for exposing ChromeOS exploits

Cody Lee ∙ March 15, 2014

Google held its Pwnium 4 security competition last week at CanSecWest in Vancouver, Canada. The day-long event ended with hundreds of thousands of dollars being awarded to hackers who demonstrated exploits in Google Chrome. And believe it or not, $150,000 of that went to Geohot.

For those not familiar with the name, Geohot has picked up a number of headlines over the past 7 years. After hacking the iPhone he took his talents to the PS3, where he caused enough chaos to get sued by Sony. And he's since been spotted at Facebook, iOSDevCamp and various other places...

Read More

How to send iMessages from any web browser on any operating system

Joe Rossignol ∙ January 29, 2014

Following in the footsteps of successful cross-platform messaging services like BlackBerry Messenger and WhatsApp, iMessage was released in late 2011 as a way for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users to send unlimited messages between each other. Apple then went on to release Messages for OS X Mountain Lion the following year, allowing Mac users to join the conversation.

But what if you're a Windows or Linux user, or you're away on travel without access to the Mac you normally use? Worry not, as Remote Messages has been updated with support for iOS 7 and 64-bit devices. The popular jailbreak tweak developed by Beast Soft is a browser-based front end for the Messages app on iOS devices. Find out what that means ahead… 

Read More

Google launches Chrome apps for iOS

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Just when you thought web apps were officially dead on mobile, the Internet giant Google has expanded the reach of its ecosystem by announcing Tuesday that it's bringing Chrome web applications to iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. Previously, Chrome apps were accessible via desktop computers only.

Conventional wisdom has it that the main advantage of web apps is that they're written using standard web technologies - HTML5, CSS and Javascript.

In turn, web apps run without major issues on any computing platform with a standards-compliant web browser. I know what you must be thinking, 'Apple offered web app development for the iPhone and it didn't work out for them', right?

Google thought of that, too: an early developer preview of its tool allows developers to actually compile their Chrome web apps as native applications which can be easily distributed through Apple's App Store and Google's own Play store...

Read More

Google posts Chrome iOS update with translation feature, data compression and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 27, 2014

Two weeks ago, Google announced it would be releasing a new Chrome version with a built-in translation feature and data compression engine capable of reducing cellular data usage by up to fifty percent. Today, a free Chrome update has just gone live in the App Store.

It brings the aforementioned Translate and Reduce Data Usage features, along with an improved New Tab Page to make searching faster and easier and the usual assortment of stability fixes and security improvements...

Read More

Chrome 32 for Mac: noisy tab indicators, supervised users, stronger malware protection

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 16, 2014

If you prefer Google's Chrome over Apple's Safari on your Mac desktops and notebooks, good news: the search monster yesterday updated the browser with a few new features that help restrict kids' use of the Internet while boosting their parents' protection from malware.

I was instantly sold on the incredibly useful noisy tab indicators that make it easier to figure out which tab sound is coming from.

Now, why didn't I think of that? Chrome 32 for Mac, Windows and Linux is now available for download and there's a detailed description of the new features right below...

Read More

Check out Google Now integration on your Mac in latest Chrome Canary release

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 16, 2014

CNET reported last summer that Google Now cards were heading to Google’s Chrome browser for the Mac. Six months later, Google releases a brand new Google Canary build with Google Now cards functionality nested right inside the browser's notification center which sits in your Mac's status bar.

Although not all Google Now cards are available in this alpha release of Chrome, the search company has integrated a few of the most popular ones like sports scores, real-time weather updates, and travel information...

Read More