Tech Olive

According to NetMarketshare.com, Google Chrome has hit a 10% browser market share for the first time ever. Of course, this is at the expense of Firefox and Internet Explorer, which both took a slight hit. They are now at 22.75% and 56.00%, respectively. Safari has been ever so slightly increasing over the past year to gain 6.30% and Opera is keeping a steady share at 2.28%.

via [Maximum PC]

Anyone else notice that Google made a minor (yet major) change to the Gmail homepage? They replaced the Reader link at the top with Photos. If you’re a frequent user of Google Reader, this most likely pissed you off in some way. However, if you’re using Google Chrome, there’s a quick fix in the form of an extension. It’s called Put Reader Back and it does just what it says. Install it and then after a quick refresh, the Reader link should be back to normal.

via [Download Squad]

So the day has finally come for the guys at Google to remove the duct tape from their mouths. They announced a few days ago that they were to unveil more details on Chrome OS and today they did just that.

First, they launched their Chrome Web Store, which has been vastly updated from when it was initially unveiled back in May. This is the place where you can get all of your Chrome extensions and themes, as well as different apps and games such as the NY Times, Sports Illustrated and even Plants vs. Zombies. The apps are compatible for both the Chrome browser and Chrome OS.

Google then moved on to the main event and handed out more details of Chrome OS. Frankly, it’s super fast. The company said that the only bottleneck is how fast you can physically navigate with the mouse/trackpad. That’s quite an impressive claim if we do say so ourselves. Google says that all the user’s data is encrypted by default and the operating system itself is loaded onto read-only memory that can’t be tampered without breaking the machine open and tinkering inside. As far as keeping the OS up to date, Google says they’ll send out automatic updates every few weeks to not only keep it up to date, but to hopefully make it faster and faster. The OS can also run in offline mode and any changes that took place will be automatically synced when it’s reconnected to the internet. As far as printing, you won’t be able to physically connect a printer to a Chrome OS machine. Instead, Google wants you using their new Cloud Print service, where you can wirelessly print to your home printer from any location.

Another big surprise is that Google even teamed up with Verizon on the Chrome OS project to bring 100MB of data per month for two years at no cost to every purchaser of a Chrome OS netbook. After the two years are up, you can vouch for a $9.99 plan that will give you unlimited access for a single day contract-free.

Now the sad part. Chrome OS is no where near completion, but we should expect netbooks to ship out sometime in the middle of next year. Acer and Samsung have said that they’re already on board to produce some Intel-based Chrome OS netbook. However, there’s currently one Chrome OS netbook model floating around that will be given to developers and a select few beta testers. The netbook is known as Cr-48 and the maker of this device is currently unknown. However, we noticed that the Caps Lock key is left out, which could only mean that Google doesn’t want us to yell over the internet.

via [Engadget]

Well looky here! Google has confirmed that they’re holding an event next Tuesday that will be focused on Chrome, which most likely means we’ll get a lot more Chrome OS details (finally). As always, we’ll update you with those details when the time comes.

via [Engadget]

It’s been two whole years since Google released their version of what a real browser is and it has since joined the ranks of the popular, crowd-favorite Firefox. Google celebrated their achievement by bumping version 6 of Chrome to a stable status. As you’d expect, the new version includes a slew of performance enhancements and a plethora of bug fixes. The updated JavaScript engine is three times that of the first release of the browser, Chrome 0.2. However, hardware graphics acceleration has not yet been added to the browser, but we should expecting that real soon.

[Google Chrome Blog]

I’m a man of multiple browsers and I’m sure many of you are too. Sometimes Firefox doesn’t always cut it and I have to move over to Chrome for a while. A big downfall with using multiple browsers is that your saved passwords and bookmarks on your favorite browser aren’t with another browser that you might switch over to every once in a while. This becomes a huge pain in the rear end, but the guys over at Tested mention a quick and painless way to sync your bookmarks and saved passwords using Xmarks. This powerful, yet simple plugin can sync bookmarks, saved passwords, and even opened tabs over multiple browsers and even over multiple computers. The plugin currently works with Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari. We recommend you give it a try.

via [Tested]

After being in beta for what seems like forever, Google has finally released a stable version of Chrome 5.0. This means that both Mac and Linux users also get a long-awaited stable version of the Google browser. Version 5 obviously has a faster JavaScript engine and updated WebKit components, but it also has more bookmarks, preferences, and themes features, as well as HTML5 features like geolocation and drag-and-drop file support. If you’re not updated yet, just open up Chrome and navigate to the little wrench icon and hit About Google Chrome. From there you can update your browser.

[Google Chrome Blog]

According to NetMarketshare.com, Google Chrome is slowly stealing the limelight from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox. Chrome grew by 0.57-percent to claim 5.2-percent of the browser market share. On the other hand, IE fell by 0.51-percent and Firefox dropped 0.2-percent to end at 62.18- and 24.41-percent, respectively. Both Safari and Opera made little moves, changing by less than a tenth of a percent.

These are all just small changes, but it could be a spark that soon ignites a new browser war.

via [Mashable]

Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president and president of IT product business group at Acer, has confirmed that the company will ship out netbooks with Chrome OS later this year in Q3. Wong also says that they plan to ship at least one million of these netbooks in 2010. That’s all the details that were given. No specs or anything.

On a side note though, Wong said that Acer will also be launching e-book readers in Asia and Europe and plan to have the Acer app store all ready to go by Q3.

via [DigiTimes]

Thanks to Mac and Linux additions to Google Chrome, the browser has now overtaken Safari for the third spot in the browser wars with a 4.4-percent market share over Safari’s 4.37-percent. A whole 0.03-percent! As always, Internet Explorer still owns the market share with 63.6-percent and Firefox trailing behind at 24.7-percent.

This isn’t a terribly big surprise, but here’s an interesting and thoughtful question: Do you think Chrome will ever surpass Firefox?

via [Computer World]