Chrome Browser Powered by : Google

The very last thing I expected to see from team Google was such an overt shot across the bow of the good ship Microsoft, but Google Chrome is indeed a fascinating utility application released just days after Microsoft gained much buzz for its latest Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) release. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Why is Chrome so interesting? Because it's really the Web-based front-end to what's clearly shaping up to be GoogleOS. Most Web browsers run a single process and manage all tabs, all separate windows, within that process. Google Chrome, on the other hand, runs each tab as its own thread, its own instance of the browser. This means that from a user's perspective if one tab goes weird it can only affect itself, not the other tabs in the browser. Nice!

Behind the scenes, however, this means that Google Chrome also has many of the core features of an operating system, including memory management, task management and the like. Hmmm... it also has Google Gears integrated into the browser, which means that you'll be able to have your Google Docs open and live, even if you're offline. Web browser + office suite + IM client (Gtalk, a part of Gmail) + web-based email system. Sounds like the Google folk are moving closer and closer to being a plug-and-play replacement for Windows, not just the apps therein.

Let me show you how to grab your own copy, then you can download it and explore what is available, what's coming soon, and what it all means.

Start by going to the Chrome home page at http://www.google.com/chrome. You'll see this:

Click on it (or click on the image above, which takes you to the same place) and agree to their End User License Agreement (EULA). While you're at this step, however, I encourage you to consider also agreeing to letting Google collect usage stats:

Some people are paranoid about Google collecting usage data, but, to quote Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, "privacy is dead, get over it". :-)

As is now common with really big downloads, the installation process is in two steps. The first is to download a small app that manages the bigger download. That app is called ChromeSetup and you'll need to agree to have it saved on your system:

This doesn't take very long to download: it's a small file. When it's done, you have a new icon on your desktop:

Double-click on it and your Windows XP system should - hopefully - confirm that you really want to run an app downloaded from the Internet:

Let's trust Google, just this once, and say "Run". Now it starts the main download:

After a few minutes - or faster, if you've a good 'net connection - you'll see this:

Now we're doing well!

Agree to the options specified, or click on "Customize these settings" to tweak things, click "Start Google Chrome" and after a few short seconds...
Preview .............

Apple pulls out of proposed Black Hat talk

Though I'm far too dumb to understand what they're talking about, I like the Black Hat hacker guys. Most of the Internet is all "New Vegas" now; all (supposedly) family friendly and glamorous and glitzy. But those guys are back on Fremont Street, gambling with everything they've got and shoulder to shoulder with the dregs of society.

Unfortunately, Apple's marketing department doesn't share my feelings. Computerworld says they've put the kibosh on a speaking engagement they were supposed to have at the conference next week in Sin City. In fact, they can't even say they were asked to pass -- everyone involved in organizing the panel, which was set up early last month and "abruptly canceled" late last month, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Which is a shame -- organizers of the conference say the panel was supposed to be all about how serious security is at Apple and how they're committed to keeping users secure. And it wasn't even supposed to be a Q&A, which is why the organizers thought it would easily be approved by marketing.

That, however, wasn't the case -- while the panel wasn't yet approved by the conference folks, the request to have the panel was pulled. We're sure the Black Hat guys will still have fun (it is Vegas, after all), but it's a shame we couldn't get that look inside Apple's security team.

Safari tab tricks [ MacOS ]

I've found myself using Firefox 3 more and more as of late, though there is one feature of Safari that I miss dearly. Picture it: you have a bunch of tabs loaded up in one window of your browser. For some reason you decide that you would really like to see one tab in its very own window. In Safari all you have to do is click on that tab and drag. As you can see to the right, a little picture of the website you're viewing appears and you can drop that picture anywhere on your screen. Once you drop it, the picture expands into a Safari window displaying that website.

This cool feature is a little tough to explain in words, so read on for a brief video demonstration.

Please note that I'm using Leopard and Safari 3.

As you can see, this is a nice piece of eye candy, and a useful little feature.

O P E R A

[ Download ]

# Get Opera to open faster
If you've been using Opera for a while, you might start to notice it doesn't launch quite as quickly as it used to. No, that doesn't mean the honeymoon is over and Opera doesn't care about impressing you anymore. Far from it: the likely cause is that Opera has been keeping track of all the sites you've been visiting, so it can be ready with a handy History list should you choose to revisit any of them. Unfortunately, this can add precious (and noticeable) seconds to Opera's otherwise speedy launch time. To cut down on the lag, go to Tools, then Preferences, then Advanced, then History, and change visited addresses to something lower. (You can also just clear your History here for a temporary fix.)

# Tweak your preferences to speed up load times
Opera can be almost embarrassingly helpful at times--that's just the kind of browser it is. But you can streamline your preferences to keep this sort of hand-holding to a minimum, especially when it comes to settings that sometimes take up more time than they save. Go under Preferences, then Network, then Server name completion. If you uncheck Try name completion and Look for local network machine, Opera will stop cycling your CPU, trying to guess what you're typing in the address bar. Otherwise, when you type in a word--such as, say, BoingBoing--your CPU will waste time looking for a bookmark named BoingBoing, a local network named BoingBoing, and any number of prefix- and suffix-added variations. (This lag, of course, is especially noticeable on slower connections.)

# Browse on the big screen
One of Opera's coolest features is Opera Show, which basically lets you turn Opera into a presentation tool--and a lightweight substitute for bloated applications such as PowerPoint. An unintended use of this full-screen viewing mode is viewing big, sprawling Web pages without the clutter of Opera's toolbars and window dressing. Just hit F11 (or go to the View menu and select Full Screen), and voila! All the clutter disappears. You can still move around, too: just use the arrow keys or the mouse wheel to scroll. When you're done with Full Screen, hit F11 again to toggle it off. (Of course, Opera Show is also great for presentations, its intended purpose, for a variety of reasons.)

Torpark

[ Download ]

The Torpark browser is a modified version of Firefox that can run off of a USB drive and uses anonymous proxies and encryption to mask user behaviour. The browser has been developed by Hacktivisimo, a group of hackers, human rights workers, lawyers and artists.

The browser uses the Tor network of routers setup by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to anonymize web traffic.All you need to do is copy the files to your USB thumb drive. The browser will encrypt traffic between the computer and the Tor router network, this makes it difficult to spy on traffic and pinpoint who is doing what in terms of browsing behaviour.

The Tor netwok also regularly changes the users IP address which makes it even more difficult to track browsing sessions.On one hand this tool is a wonder for online security, however it has a darkside. One feature of the Torpark browser is that it can run directly off of a USB flash drive. This could cause headaches for some IT administrators who may be restricting employee’s browsing behaviour for intellection property issues , or acceptable use policies. Since the browser does not need to be installed on the system and can simply be run from a USB flash drive, it opens the door for a long list of potential endpoint security threats.

Metode Mempercepat Browser Firefox

Bagi pengguna Firefox yang ingin menambah kecepatan browser, metode-metode berikut ini bisa dicoba :


Metode 1:
Buka browser Mozilla Firefox.
Ketik 'about:config' pada address bar, lalu tekan enter.
Turunkan halaman sampai Anda menemukan kalimat 'browser.tabs.showSingleWindowsModePrefs', lalu double klik sehingga settingannya menjadi 'true'.
Turunkan lagi halaman Firefox sampai Anda menemukan baris berbunyi 'network.http.pipelining', lalu double klik sehingga settingannya juga menjadi 'true'.
Terakhir, turunkan lagi halaman Firefox dan carilah baris yang berbunyi 'network.http.pipelining.maxrequests', lalu double klik. Anda akan disuguhi sebuah window pop up. Ubahlah angka di pop up itu menjadi 60. Kemudian tekanlah 'Ok'.
Tutup Firefox lalu coba buka kembali. Jika tidak ada masalah, Firefox Anda akan terbuka 10-40 persen lebih cepat daripada sebelumnya dengan langkah-langkah seperti di atas.

Metode 2:
Langkah mujarab lain untuk meningkatkan kecepatan Firefox adalah dengan menggunakan add-on untuk Firefox bernama FasterFox. FasterFox ini membuat pemakaian bandwidth lebih efektif sehingga bisa mempercepat performa Firefox. Anda bisa mendownload FasterFox di alamat: http://fasterfox.mozdev.org.