So I had to use Internet Explorer today (yes, I know, it was a horrible experience) and noticed on Google’s homepage that they’re advertising their Chrome web browser. Strange, I thought; haven’t seen that before. After a quick look in Firefox, Safari and Opera it seems Google are only targeting users of Internet Explorer to switch to Chrome. Good job lads!

Since it’s release late last year Chrome has already gained 1.23% of the market share according to Net Applications, which may not seem like a big number but it is significant as it shows it’s growing at the same rate as more established browsers Firefox and Safari.

I like Chrome - it may have a few hiccups and teething problems but it remains fast to use and has a lovely interface so the more people Google attract away from Internet Explorer the better.

For the most part you won’t give file formats or colour modes a second thought unless you’re a graphic designer, but there are a couple of things to bear in mind when saving images for the web:

File Formats

• GIF - 8-bit pallette, so limited to 256 colours including “transparent”. Lossless compression. Can be animated. Useful for small icons.
• JPG - 24-bit pallette (full colour). Lossy compression can mean poor image quality if set too high but good filesizes as a result. Useful for photographs.
• PNG - 24-bit pallette including alpha-channel transparency which enables any percentage transparency on any pixel regardless of colour supported by all modern browsers. Lossless compression. Ideal for more complex icons or images with crisp edges. The only downside is a relatively large filesize.

I’ve noticed recently that many people who use the variable font/text size feature while surfing the web are quite unaware that modern browsers provide a much neater alternative: Zooming the entire page in and out.

I was never a fan of text zooming. If it allowed people to read the text better that was of course a benefit, but too often it just didn’t work. Layouts weren’t always built to cater for varying text sizes and could become even more confusing to understand.

So cue the idea of not zooming just the text, but magnifying the whole page and therefore keeping everything in proportion. Genius! Not a new idea granted, Opera has featured it for years, but it’s an immensely handy feature not only for people with poor eyesight. Users with large screens at very high resolutions, or for developers to take a closer graphical look at the positioning of elements on the page. Controls can usually be found in the “View” menu or by handy keyboard shortcuts:

• Zoom In: CTRL +
• Zoom Out: CTRL -
• Reset: CTRL 0

These days page zooming is becoming more widespread with good support in mainstream browsers Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, as well as lesser-known Opera. Apple Safari and Google Chrome have yet to implement it, which I’m surprised and a little disappointed about.. Come on guys, catch up!

On my way to work this morning I suddenly became so excited I nearly forgot to breathe. “But Alex, whatever caused this sudden, potentially life-threatening onset of hysteria?” I hear you ask. Well, allow me to enlighten you - this morning, security holes in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser have been deemed serious enough to make the national news headlines, both on the BBC website, and repeatedly throughout the morning on Radio 1’s news reports.

The report mentions that the apparently newly-discovered flaw in Internet Explorer’s security allows attackers to steal a user’s passwords, as well as other personal data. Experts are advising people to use a different browser in order to stay safe online. So I guess that makes us experts at Primate Designs, as we’ve been saying this stuff for years.

Read the article on the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7784908.stm

Get Firefox: http://www.getfirefox.com/

It’s interesting to see that (at the time of writing) there is no mention or warning about this serious security issue on Internet Explorer’s official homepage - even though it’s plastered all over the national news. Perhaps Microsoft decided it was better not to risk telling users the same important information twice. Instead, there is a badly acted video about waterskiing barefoot over electrified water snakes and sticking road flares in your ears. Or something. Good job guys.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/media/fathers_advice_500k.asx

Last week I commented on Microsoft pushing potentially unstable software to users who were likely to be unaware of the potential risks. Unfortunately it seems Google is no more responsible, with a link at the bottom of each Youtube page inviting users to “Try YouTube in a new web browser! Download Google Chrome”.

The fact that I’ve been playing with the beta of Chrome for weeks and haven’t had any problems yet is beside the point. There could be stability or security issues, which could leave many unsuspecting users vulnerable.

It seems increasingly fashionable, if somewhat worrying, to push beta releases to the unsuspecting general public. I’m as keen to see the release of Internet Explorer 8 as the next developer, not least because it will be the first Microsoft browser to run in standards compliant mode by default; but it does concern me when I visit the IE homepage and am greeted by a big advert inviting me to download IE8 beta with the tag line “Introducing Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 - faster, easier, and safer than ever.” Is the average web user aware that beta means it is potentially unstable or insecure pre-release software put out there purely for testing purposes? I doubt it.

It’s been a few weeks since Google released a beta of their new Chrome web browser and we’ve been having a play with it. First impressions are good - nice look, good speed and stability.

It seems they’ve put plenty of thought into what a browser interface should do these days and opted for minimalistic, even going so far as to replace the conventional title bar with the page tabs when the window is maximised. All other buttons and menu items are in-line with the address bar, while the status bar only appears in the bottom left of the window when there is information to display; a very neat solution indeed.

Primate Website in Chrome

Thankfully Google realised that the last thing developers needed was yet another rendering engine so Chrome is based on the Webkit open source project, a good standards-compliant engine already used by the Safari browser which is popular with Mac users. It has to be said I think that Chrome has slightly better text anti-aliasing than Safari. Google Chrome is in fact an offshoot from the Chromium open source project.

Security is definitely a hot topic these days and Google have published plenty of information regarding Chrome’s abilities to keep you safe online. I won’t claim to understand the ins and outs of software programming and I’m fairly sure anybody who’s interested in the subject will already have read the release documentation, but consideration has been given to security relationships between the browser process, rendering engine and plugins through use of sandboxing. Many people have already expressed concern over Google’s optional collection of usage information though it’s hardly a new idea; many browsers and other applications have this feature although it’s not clear exactly what information they gather given the chance.

Google have also been quick to stress that the release of Chrome will not affect their sponsorship of Mozilla’s Firefox browser despite it’s release coinciding with the end of their two-year contract with Mozilla.

All in all this is one to watch. Google undoubtedly have an ability to market new web services so we could see a reasonable uptake of the software. From what I’ve seen, that’s probably no bad thing.