Chrome will probably become the default browser on Android

At long last, as the above video details, Google Chrome will be coming to Android in version 4 upwards. Despite the fact that the current browser in Android is based off of WebKit and the V8 JavaScript engine it will probably bring a load of new features, most importantly Chrome Sync. I should imagine that ultimately it is just a re-branded version of the current browser, but slightly improved.

There is still some work to be done according to initial reviews however it seems that it is still very good and a major design improvement on the standard browser. Android has really needed Chrome for a while and it doesn’t surprised me that it has finally jumped ship and I am sure that in the future as it gets more users Chrome or Chromium will become the default browser for Android, perhaps with Android 5+ or even in an update to Ice Cream Sandwich.

This is normal

I’ve just realized that on average I have about twenty tabs open and I often get up to about fifty in long sections of research and feed reading. I really need to be more organised.

Firefox is no longer the most secure?

This is horrible. A study has been carried out (it is worth noting that Google sponsored it, hence how Chrome obviously wins)  that shows Chrome as the most secure web browser followed by Internet Explorer and then Firefox. The main reason that Chrome wins is probably because security (and speed) was one of the key aims when Chrome was originally created and every single tab, app and extension are sandboxed very tightly so that they can’t do anything that they shouldn’t be allowed to do. Internet Explorer has been slowly gaining this feature over the last few versions and it is still quite bad implemented.

I would say that Firefox has quite a lot of security though and it does sandbox to a certain extent, although probably not as much as the other browsers. Plugin security has been something that has been included in all three browsers for a while and theoretically Microsoft would win this if only Silverlight were judged.

I think that the main reason that Firefox has fallen behind is because the security was the main reason that people downloaded it initially. Aside from being faster, Firefox 1 was what was bringing people away from IE because it wasn’t going to infect their computer and had relatively good reviews. Over time Firefox added new problems that led to security holes.

By the time that Chrome was released Firefox was getting quite clunky and Chrome, being built from scratch, was offering both security and speed. Firefox then had to catch up with Chrome’s speed which meant that security was ignored and even now the new releases are advertised as being faster rather than safer. It doesn’t really surprise me that IE has improved in the last few years and the main reason is probably also Chrome; it needed to be better because it had already had such bad press.

How HTML5 is showcasing creativity across the web

A few years ago people would look at a Flash animation/game and say meh, that’s alright. Today HTML5 is gradually becoming more popular (and powerful) with support from across the development community and all the major browsers. Many websites and programmers are realizing that HTML5 is a very effective way to  bring people to their site, especially if they develop an experiment and upload it to Chrome Experiments or code a game and upload it to the Chrome Web Store.

Both sites are very easy to explore and showcase a wide variety of content created by people entirely using new HTML5 features such as web audio, web video, canvas, WebGL and CSS3 animation among hundreds of new JavaScript libraries that have been included in Chrome which give access to features previously unavailable such as complex local databases.

HTML5 is also capable of bringing in people that don’t code because they understand HTML5 – HTML is what the web currently uses but version five will give it a lot of much needed upgrades allowing for new features that simply didn’t exist before. People also understand it because it works on their smartphones (iOS devices…) and everywhere else allowing them to easily access their web apps.

I haven’t really done very much with HTML5 (my only major experiment was re-writing the iOS game FallDown! into <canvas>) but I hope to do a lot more once I’ve got DumbCMS out the way.

Speaking with Google Chrome

Google have announced that they are now linking Operating System level Text-To-Speech APIs in with Chrome extensions and apps, meaning you can now produce synthesized text from JavaScript. To do this you need to add the following line to your manifest.json:

"permissions": ["tts"],

And then when you want to speak, use this code:

chrome.tts.speak("Text to speak.");

It isn’t particularly difficult to use, though the disadvantage is that it uses the OS default (only Mac or Windows), which is OK on Mac but rubbish with Microsoft Sam/Anna on Windows.

Click here to download my demo extension.

The psychology of version numbers

I am not a psychologist and I don’t really claim to be any good at it. Yesterday Firefox 7 was released. The Firefox project changed its versioning system earlier this year so that know they will be doing regular updates increasing version numbers every few months – to the degree that this time last year I was using Firefox 3.6. Google Chrome works in a similar way – I’m currently using version 15 (beta) however this time last year I was using version 6 (final). Version 16 – ten versions later – is already available in the developer channel. But what is it about having big version numbers?

The first thing is that having a bigger number seems to convey age or maturity of a product. If I told you that I was 40 you would definitely assume that I was more mature than a 14 year old. If I told you that I’ve got an IQ of 160 you’d probably say I was highly intelligent*. Basically, the bigger the number, the better we assume it is.

Google Chrome using v14 current version suggests that it is more developed than Opera (v11), Internet Explorer (9), Firefox (7) and Safari(5?). People think that a new version number means that a lot more features. If this is the case, people will assume there are more features in Google Chrome.

Many people believe that Firefox increasing its release system is because they are trying to play catch-up firstly with the other browsers, but ultimately Google Chrome. Firefox is losing users dramatically, and Google Chrome is gaining them at the same rate (well, the same rate Firefox and Internet Explorer are losing them). I made a bet with a friend earlier this year that Google Chrome would overtake Firefox by 2012, and I still think it will – maybe even by November.

Firefox developers believe that increasing version numbers will increase inferred maturity or features. Whether it will or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that there are quite a lot of ads for Chrome on other browsers at the moment.

*Last time I did an IQ test I got this, but it was one of those dodgy online ones that is quite inaccurate.

Chrome’s new New Tab page (v15 Beta)

When I went on Google Chrome Beta this morning I noticed a difference when I opened a new tab – it was newer. The folks at Google have updated the page (and blogged about it). Here is a quick screenshot of what it looks like:

The page now allows for flicking between Most Visited, Apps and Bookmarks – it has arrows on the left and right as well as a small menu at the bottom. I’m sure that the extra space where the titles had been has also now allowed for slightly bigger logos and the font has also changed. Judging by some of the comments on their launch post I would suggest that opinion is mixed of the new tab page and it is clear that it is buggy for some users, but I like it.

Google Chrome: Change Comic Sans to Arial/Helvetica on every page!

I am one of those people who cringes every single time they see Comic Sans in print. It is an absolutely awful font. I really cannot understand why people still use it, and with any luck Microsoft won’t include it in Windows 8, but perhaps I am being hopeful. When browsing a website today that just used Comic Sans I realized that there had to be a better solution.

After a quick look round the Chrome Web Store I found an extension called Allvetica, but I didn’t like it so I took it apart and modified it to build Kill Comic Sans, which *should* replace Comic Sans on all web pages.

To install Kill Comic Sans just click the link and then confirm it can access your data on all pages to start killing Comic Sans. I’ll blog about it when I update it…

After Flash

The internet seems to have come to the conclusion that Flash is dying. Which is interesting really, considering that Flash is used by 99% of the internet linked computers on the planet. I don’t use it much, but then again most of what I do involves coding. If you look at Adobe shares on Yahoo! Finance (the only thing I use Yahoo! for) you see that they have grown since 2000 – which is before they owned Macromedia, but have fallen since last year – perhaps suggesting that Flash is no longer as successful as it would like to be.

Adobe has been rolling out Flash since 2005, but it hasn’t been as easy as they might like. At first it was a success when they customised Macromedia’s tools into things that looked more like the other Adobe tools. Designers were thrilled. However, Flash would soon gain itself some enemies that would eventually lead it into the state that it is in today.

In early 2007 two things happened: Microsoft released Vista, no big deal because it turned out to be rubbish. Meanwhile, Apple pulled out all the stops and announced the iPhone. It was a device of beauty, something unlike anything either company had ever produced before. Adobe were keen to get in, but Steve Jobs wouldn’t let them: there would be no Flash on the iPhone. This lead to users wishing for Flash on their iPhones and iPod Touches.

Later the following year Flash had another announcement came to set back Flash: Google would be releasing a browser based on the open-source WebKit project called Chrome. This browser was different because it would be based on giving maximum HTML5 support for all users. Interestingly, it did include the Flash runtime, however it was the HTML5 support that was the main problem.

Adobe didn’t understand that HTML5 is the way forward. They didn’t understand that Flash would soon die thanks to the efforts of their competitors. At this point it is interesting to consider another competitor: Microsoft. Microsoft had not voiced any public opinion on HTML5, and had their own rival to Flash called Silverlight. Silverlight wasn’t particularly successful and has penetrated very little of the web. In early 2010 Microsoft began to drop Silverlight slightly to encourage more HTML5 with previews on their new browser: Internet Explorer 9. You could say that it was only Flash that kept IE users happy enough not to switch to something else.

Something else happened in early 2010 that probably got Adobe’s hopes up: the iPad. Perhaps now that Apple had developed a cross of the desktop and mobile they would be happy to have Flash on the device to continue having a more desktop experience? No. Apple had begun to realise, however, that it need to support HTML5, but perhaps a little to late. They began to develop tools to ship with Dreamweaver and Flash CS5 that would allow Flash projects to be exported, ready for iOS. However, in April 2010 they had their biggest drawback: a neat bit of revenge from Apple’s boss. If you click here you can read through Steve Job’s personal view on Flash: he hates it and there will be a blanket ban on all apps submitted to the App Store that have been created by ‘third party’ applications.. But he is basically right: Adobe has been wrong to continue to develop Flash when they should be looking onto to a more realistic future where Flash is not the market leader for Rich Media presentation on the web.

In the next few months iPad users began to discover something new. The HTML5 web experience. Websites were now building dedicated ‘iPad friendly’ versions of the site with new features that made it more dynamic and all without Flash. People were getting a better experience. After a few months Apple lifted this ban, perhaps because people were keen to use tools like C# (MonoTouch) and Java to develop apps – and they had no problem with that. By this point it was too late for CS5 because the feature to export to iPhone was quickly removed when Apple made the announcement, resulting in the feature being included in Flash Pro CS5.5.

Dreamweaver CS5.5 also purposely included extra HTML5 support with templates included to make iOS web design even better. This wasn’t done to support the HTML5 standard or to encourage developers to use it; they just wanted in on Apple. Perhaps Apple only began to realise a few weeks ago it needed to support HTML5 by announcing Adobe Edge. Edge is basically a design tool for HTML5 animation, however it is based off of a JavaScript library, and I would prefer it was more pure HTML5.

The problem with the future being HTML5 is Dreamweaver. HTML5 could be described as an open mix of Flash and Dreamweaver, but ultimately all design will be in Dreamweaver because it will be the only way that Adobe keep users. Dreamweaver is the world’s most popular web design tool (I handcode in NetBeans) and if it is to stay that way it will be extensively HTML5. There is, however, the possibility that Dreamweaver will be knocked from the podium by an open-project. I agree with this: there ultimately needs to be an open-source web design program that can take on Dreamweaver.

IE users have a lower IQ (Hilarious survey)

UPDATE: IT HAS SINCE EMERGED THAT THE STORY, AND COMPANY, WERE A FAKE

A consulting firm called AptiQuant has run some IQ surveys across 100,000 people. Pretty useful – though I’ve always found that websites that try and work out my IQ seem to get confused and give me really low scores (on the last one I get 160). This company ran the survey, but to be useful, also collected data on which browser the participants were using. The result was that users using Internet Explorer tended to have a lower IQ than those using better browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox and a browser based on Firefox called Camino. Opera and Camino users tended to have above average (>100) IQs whilst the other browsers’ users were generally average (100).

Reading through the article on BBC News – currently the second most read article – the firm suggests that rather than Internet Explorer actually lowering people’s IQ it was just that people with lower IQs tended to be using Internet Explorer in the first place. But what if it was the other way round, and IE did actually lower people’s IQs:

• The slow browsing experience means that there is less time to look up new interesting things
• The number of ads for better browsers confuses the audience and so lowers their IQ
• The already low IQs mean that people don’t understand they need to download a better browser

Of course, I don’t doubt that this is not necessarily true, however I thought it was fun anyway. My ultimate suggestion to get people off of Internet Explorer is for someone like Google to stop throwing ads everywhere but to setup an advertising campaign where there is a ‘Chrome day’ where you have to get a friend using Internet Explorer off of it and onto Google Chrome. People are more likely to listen to their friends than to ads on the internet, so it could be useful…