Items tagged with Browser
An interesting new feature is currently rolling out to Chrome users on Android devices that can show the definition of any word in a text passage. When users are reading a text page on the Chrome browser with their Android device, they're able to tap a word to see a definition or knowledge graph information on the bottom of the screen. As of this writing, the feature hasn't widely rolled out. Depending on the word that users tap, the definition could include a small image. Users typically see a picture of the book if they are receiving a word definition. When the word touched is an object or element, small images are offered. When given a dictionary result, users are also presented with a pronunciation...
Read more...
Heavy Chrome users know that it can be hard to manage all the tabs that they tend to have open at one time. Google feels the pain and has announced that it's bringing a new way to organize Chrome tabs called tab groups. The feature is available right now in Chrome beta channel and will come to the stable channel at a later date. Google says with tab groups, users will be able to right-click and group tabs together and label them with a custom name and color. Once the tabs are grouped, they can be moved and reordered within the tab strip. The new feature will allow users to group tabs by topic or by job if working on multiple projects at the same time. Google says that some early users have grouped...
Read more...
Many people were surprised when Microsoft threw in the towel for its original Edge browser and opted to build an entirely new desktop browser that was powered by Chromium. Microsoft predicted big things for its Chromium-powered browser, and the new Edge is now gaining ground on its competition. Recently, Microsoft Edge passed Mozilla's Firefox to become the world's second most used desktop browser. Data confirming the second-place ranking for Edge came from analytics firm NetMarketShare, and the changing fortunes for Firefox occurred in March. It is currently the second most-used desktop browser in the world, with a market share of 7.59 percent with Firefox very close behind at 7.19 percent....
Read more...
Homer Simpson spoke for all of us when he said, "Mmm...crumbled-up cookie things" in Lisa the Greek (Season 3, Episode 14). I mean really, who does not like cookies? Or cookie things? Be that as it may, cookies in browsers are not always so delectable, and so Google is changing the recipe for developers with the release of Chrome 80. Chrome 80 will begin rolling out today, and then starting later in the month, Google will be enforcing a new cookie classification system within the latest stable browser build. This will start with a "small population of users" and then gradually increase to include more Chrome users over time (though Google doesn't specify how fast it plans to ramp things up)....
Read more...
After beta testing an experimental feature in Chrome for several months without any major issues, Google decided to flip the switch in its main Stable release, and chaos ensued for hundreds of organizations and thousands of machines. Apparently the experimental feature was not quite ready for prime time, as IT admins suddenly had to contend with a mysteriously broken browser. For those affected, it was not immediately clear what exactly caused all the ruckus. All they really knew was that tabs were suddenly crashing and showing up as blank. This is referred to as a white screen of death (WSOD) error. The issue manifested itself on Chrome browsers running on Windows Server terminal setups and...
Read more...
Brave is a company that was co-founded by ex-Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich after he was booted from the organization in 2014. Brave today launched version 1.0 of its browser, and it is available for most platforms including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. Brave is launching into a market that is ripe with competition and is trying to differentiate itself from other browsers by positing itself as a fast option that is focused on privacy with strong default settings. The browser also has cryptocurrency-focused private ads that allow users to support content creators but promises to share no personal information about the user. To encourage users to watch Brave's ads, it has a Brave Rewards...
Read more...
Google is putting the final touches on a handful of new features headed to its Chrome browser, and today we get a glimpse of a few of them. For power surfers, the most interesting changes are those that apply to tab management. This is going to be more convenient on both desktop and mobile, with iOS users already having access to a tab grid layout. That same feature will arrive on Android sometime in the "next few weeks." Here is what it looks like on an iPhone running iOS 13 (with the new dark mode in IOS enabled)... You can rearrange tabs, but when it rolls out on Android, users will be able to group them as well. They can do this simply by tapping and dragging a tabbed page onto another within...
Read more...
Computer users looking for an alternative browser to Microsoft Edge, Firefox, or Chrome might be familiar with Vivaldi. The big claim to fame for Vivaldi is that the browser is very customizable. Its feature set has carved it out a niche on desktop systems, but there was no version for mobile devices until now. Vivaldi has now launched for Android. Vivaldi for Android is in beta and bills itself as a fully-featured browser for Android; the company's first foray into the mobile browser world. The mobile browser looks just like the regular browser and has the same set of tools integrated. The tools include Panels, Speed Dials, Notes, and Capture. The mobile browser launches in the speed dials section,...
Read more...
Well, that was fast—websites have already found another end-around in Google's Chrome browsers to detect when a user is running in a private session, otherwise known as Incognito mode. This is an obvious privacy concern, though realistically, some users are simply ticked at not being able to easily thwart paywalled websites. This was supposed to have been addressed in the recent Chrome 76 update. For several years, websites have been able to leverage the FileSystem API in Chrome to detect if a user is running in Incognito mode. Sites requiring a subscription to access content—otherwise known as a paywall—could therefore block access during a private browsing session. In Chrome...
Read more...
There are a multitude of suspicious website spread across the web. Should you stumble across a less-than-upstanding site for whatever reason, the common thing to do is close your browser window and carry on. Google wants to change that, though. Google now wants to know when you run across scammy sites so it can ultimately make the web a safer place for everyone. To facilitate a safer internet, it has launched a new Chrome extension that allows users to report suspicious sites to Safe Browsing. The extension is called the Suspicious Site Reporter. The extension helps to protect users by gathering data on sites the user deems suspicious and reporting them to Google Safe Browsing, which Google says...
Read more...
Opera has announced a new browser called Opera GX, which is the world's first gaming browser. The browser allows the user to control their PC CPU and memory usage to make streaming smoother. GX might be the ideal browser for people looking to take advantage of streaming game services, such as Google Stadia, that will be launching soon. The browser is in early access for Windows 10 now, and as of today, gamers can download the browser and try it out. The final version of the browser will launch later this year. Opera GX Control Panel is a new method to control how much of the CPU or RAM the browser is allowed to use. Users can toggle controls chose to devote a portion of RAM to the computer resources...
Read more...
At long last, The Tor Project has officially ported its Tor browser to Android devices with the first stable release for Google's open source operating system. It is now available on Google Play and will also make its way to F-Droid within the next day. Previously, Android users had access to test builds, with the first alpha version being released last September. Now after "months of hard work" and listening to feedback from its users, The Tor Project has released Tor Browser 8.5 to Android (alongside a desktop upgrade to 8.5 as well). "Mobile browsing is increasing around the world, and in some parts, it is commonly the only way people access the internet. In these same areas, there is often...
Read more...
I’ll Chrome might be the most popular browser out there, but it still has issues that fans want resolved. Google has been working on resolving many of the big complaints that Chrome users have with features like the Never-Slow mode that aims to cut back on the resources that Chrome is notorious for hogging. Google also added a caching feature for Chrome this year that aims to make browsing faster. Another new feature that Google is working on has surfaced, and this one aims to make the browser much cleaner looking for those who tend to surf with lots of tabs open. The feature is called Tab Groups, and it organizes tabs into multiple groups to make them easier to find and work with....
Read more...
Chrome is the most popular browser on the market even though it is far from perfect. One of the biggest complaints that Chrome users have is that the browser tends to be very resource intensive using up memory and excess processing cycles that can slow down the entire system. It appears that Google is finally ready to do something about the resource-intensive nature of Chrome with a new mode that would place limits on resources the browser can consume. Details of a mode called "Never-Slow Mode" have surfaced on Chromium Gerrit and indicate that the mode would place hard limits on the resources a webpage could consume. Developer Alex Russell explains that the mode "would enforce per-interaction...
Read more...
With Google's Chrome web browser being the most popular browser out there right now, new features for the browser are something that many web surfers look forward to. Google is reportedly working on a new feature that will stop one nefarious tactic websites use to keep you from leaving their site. Specifically, a new version of Chrome will stop websites from preventing the back button from working. Google calls the act of breaking the back button "history manipulation." The first hints that Google was working to stop this sort of manipulation came from code spotted inside the Chromium project; this is the core code that the Chrome browser is based upon. This code suggested that the Chrome feature...
Read more...
Google has begun pushing out a new build of its Chrome browser, version 70.0.3538.67, to end users at large. This latest release is an official build, not a beta version, and as such should be considered stable for the general populace. One of the new features Chrome 70 brings to the table is a retooled account login system. The new feature is in reaction to complaints and concerns that the previous build was automatically signing users into their Google accounts whenever they would visit a Google website or service, such as Gmail. The featured sparked a privacy concern. Google insisted it wasn't using the auto login feature to collect more data, but ultimately conceded it was the right move...
Read more...
Digital assistants are now a part of everyday life for many users, whether it's barking out commands at Siri on an iPhone, summoning Google Now (or later Duplex) on an Android device, asking Cortana to look something up in Windows 10, shouting at Samsung's Bixby on a Galaxy device, or asking Amazon's Alexa to perform one of its many skills. So what's next in the AI assistant space? Mozilla is building a new voice-controlled web browser called Scout. We all know Mozilla as the developer of Firefox, one of the popular browsers that people turn to when they don't want to use Internet Explorer or Edge in Windows, or Safari on Windows (Firefox is also available on mobile platforms). In staying with...
Read more...
Google has started pushing out a version update to its Chrome browser, Chrome 67 (67.0.3396.62, to be exact), for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. The latest releases introduces several fixes and improvements, including password-free login support by way of WebAuthn, a new specification that is supported by default in Chrome 67. It's the first stable release of Chrome to offer this ability. WebAuth, or Web Authentication, is an API that allows for logging into websites using biometric schemes, such as fingerprint scanning and facial recognition technology. It also supports USB devices that can authenticate a user, such as a YubiKey. Google, along with Mozilla and Microsoft, have committed to...
Read more...
Earlier this month Google rolled out an update that aimed to mute those annoying videos that automatically play with sound while you are surfing the web. While that was a welcome goal, the update also had some unintended consequences for fans of web-based games. The update rendered those games unable to play sound. Google has recognized its error and has announced that it will be updating Chrome to temporarily remove the update that broke the games. The original update automatically paused Web Audio projects when a webpage launched. The same feature silenced the audio in these web-based games and the fix is to temporarily remove the autoplay policy from the Web Audio API for Chrome 66. The change...
Read more...
Managing the web and its many destinations is not an easy thing to do, though it's one that every browser maker has tasked itself with accomplishing. That includes Google and its popular Chrome browser. As it were, one of the things Google recently set out to do was to make the web less annoying by muting some videos that play automatically when visiting a website. Unfortunately, it's had the undesired side effect of breaking millions of browser-based games. Google introduced the feature as a default option when with Chrome version 66, which it started pushing out three weeks ago. In previous versions, game audio would play either when a page loaded, or after the user pressed the "play" button....
Read more...
Over the coming days and weeks, Google will push out a new build of its Chrome browser that will introduce several fixes and improvements. Perhaps the most welcome change included in Chrome version 66 is a new feature that mutes sound when a website automatically plays a video. This is one of the biggest annoyances on the web, especially if you leave the volume on your PC or mobile device turned up, and it's nice to see Google taking action. This is a feature that Google has been working on for a long time, and initially planned to roll out earlier. Instead, it previously implemented the ability to block sound on a site-by-site basis. As of Chrome 66, however, sites are only allowed to automatically...
Read more...
Mozilla has announced the launch of Firefox 59, which is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The new release builds on Firefox Quantum and is a significant update for fans of the browser. Among the performance enhancements of the new browser include faster load times for content on the Firefox Home page. The faster page load times are thanks in part to loading from the networked cache or the cache on the user hard drive. Graphics rendering has been improved thanks to a move to Off-Main-Thread Painting (OMTP) for Mac users; this feature landed for Windows and Linux back in Firefox 58. Users can now drag-and-drop to rearrange Top Sites on the Firefox home page and windows and tabs have...
Read more...
