Chromium Blog
News and developments from the open source browser project
Google Chrome for Linux goes stable
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Since the
initial beta release
of Google Chrome for Linux
last December
, we've been hard at work adding the polish necessary to upgrade the browser to our stable channel.
With continued improvements in plugin support, extensions functionality, and desktop integration, as well as new features such as desktop notifications and bookmark sync, we believe this release of
Google Chrome for Linux
to be a solid, high-performance, fully-featured, all-purpose browser. From the
early porting days
of layout test fixing, deep and hairy posix and raw X11 code, to designing a truly native UI and building a host of new and polished features, we’re thrilled to work with the larger community to deliver a fast, stable, secure, and sophisticated browser.
Going forward, we are committed to continuing to deliver all the security, performance, and features (old and new) of Google Chrome for Windows, while integrating as seamlessly as possible with the Linux desktop ecosystem on a variety of popular Linux distributions.
Posted by Evan Stade and Elliot Glaysher, Software Engineers
WebM and VP8 land in Chromium
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
A developer preview of
WebM
, a high-quality, open, freely implementable, and web-optimized video format was
announced
today. Initial support for WebM, including its video codec VP8 will be checked into Chromium later tonight. You can try it by building Chromium yourself or watch for it in the dev channel build in the coming weeks.
Posted by Jim Bankoski, Engineering Manager and Frank Galligan, Tech Lead
The Chrome Web Store
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
We believe it should be easier for users to discover web apps and for developers to reach a large audience. That’s why today at
Google I/O
, we announced the
Chrome Web Store
, an open marketplace for web apps.
Google Chrome users who find web apps in the store will be able to create convenient shortcuts in Chrome for easy access. Also, developers will have the option to easily sell their apps through the store using a convenient and secure payment system.
To give you a preview of what it means to prepare a web app for the store, we've published some
preliminary documentation
. We look forward to your feedback and sharing our progress with you openly as many of the technical details will likely change before we launch. To stay up-to-date, subscribe to our
developer group
and look for news on the
Chromium blog
.
The Chrome Web Store will be available to users later this year. We plan to share more technical details soon. In the meantime, visit
chrome.google.com/webstore
for more information.
Posted by Erik Kay, Lead Software Engineer
A sneak peek at the Native Client SDK
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Today, we’re happy to make available a developer preview of the Native Client SDK – an important first step in making Native Client more accessible as a tool for developing real web applications.
When we released the research version of Native Client a year ago, we offered a snapshot of our source tree that developers could download and tinker with, but the download was big and cumbersome to use. The Native Client SDK preview, in contrast, includes just the basics you need to get started writing an app in minutes: a GCC-based compiler for creating x86-32 or x86-64 binaries from C or C++ source code, ports of popular open source projects like zlib, Lua, and libjpeg, and a few samples that will help you get you started developing with the
NPAPI Pepper Extensions
. Taken together, the SDK lets you write C/C++ code that works seamlessly in Chromium and gives you access to powerful APIs to build your web app.
To get started with the SDK preview, grab a copy of the download at
code.google.com/p/nativeclient-sdk
. You’ll also need a
recent build of Chromium
started with the --enable-nacl command-line flag to test the samples and your apps. Because the SDK relies on NPAPI Pepper extensions that are currently only available in Chromium, the SDK won’t work with the Native Client browser plug-ins.
We’ll be updating the SDK rapidly in the next few months, so download a copy, develop some cool apps,
share them
with the community and
send us your feedback
! If you build useful libraries in the process, please also consider submitting a patch to the
SDK packages directory
– chances are, what’s been useful to you will be useful to others. Finally, if you’re attending Google I/O, come to our
Beyond JavaScript
session, or meet the team at the Developer Sandbox.
Posted by David Springer, Senior Software Engineer
The future of O3D
Friday, May 7, 2010
We
launched
the O3D API about a year ago to start a discussion within the web community about establishing a new standard for 3D graphics on the web. Since then, we’ve also helped develop
WebGL
, a 3D graphics API based on OpenGL ES 2.0 that has gradually emerged as a standard, and is supported by other browser and hardware vendors like Mozilla, Apple and Opera.
At Google, we’re deeply committed to implementing and advancing standards, so as of today, the O3D project is changing direction, evolving from its current plug-in implementation into a JavaScript library that runs on top of WebGL. Users and developers will still be able to download the O3D plug-in and source code for at least one year, but other than a maintenance release, we plan to stop developing O3D as a plug-in and focus on improving WebGL and O3D as a JavaScript library.
We did not take this decision lightly. In initial discussions we had about WebGL, we were concerned that JavaScript would be too slow to drive a low-level API like OpenGL and we were convinced that a higher level approach like the O3D scene graph would yield better results. We were also cognizant of the lack of installed OpenGL drivers on many Windows machines, and that this could hamper WebGL’s adoption.
Since then, JavaScript has become a lot faster. We've been very impressed by the demos that developers have created with WebGL, and with the
ANGLE
project, we believe that Chromium will be able to run WebGL content on Windows computers without having to rely on installed OpenGL drivers.
The JavaScript implementation of O3D is still in its infancy, but you can find a copy of it on the
O3D project site
and see it running some of the O3D samples from a WebGL enabled browser (alas, no
Beach Demo
yet). Because browsers lack some requisite functionality like compressed asset loading, not all the features of O3D can be implemented purely in JavaScript. We plan to work to give the browser this functionality, and all capabilities necessary for delivering high-quality 3D content.
We’d like to thank the developers who have contributed to O3D by delivering valuable feedback, submitting changes to the plugin and developing applications. To help you convert your application to the new WebGL implementation of O3D, we will keep our
discussion group
open where our engineering team will answer your questions and provide you with technical advice. For those of you concerned about support for Internet Explorer, we’ll recommend using
Google Chrome Frame
once it supports WebGL, and hope to see IE implement WebGL natively someday. We hope you will continue working with us and the rest of the WebGL community on moving 3D on the web forward.
Posted by Matt Papakipos, Engineering Director, and Vangelis Kokkevis, Software Engineer
Globetrotting with Google Chrome Extensions and HTML5
Thursday, May 6, 2010
The Google Chrome Developer Relations team has been working hard to spread the word about Google Chrome’s extensions platform and support for HTML5. Besides speaking at developer events around Silicon Valley, we’ve made it a priority to connect with developers in other locations in and out of the United States.
Following
our trips last year
to the Czech Republic, Russia, and Argentina, we spent a good chunk of the past few months on the road meeting with hundreds of developers and
Google Technology User Groups
.
For starters, Brian Kennish spoke about
advanced extensions
at Google DevFest in Tokyo, Japan and Google’s South by Southwest Interactive booth in Austin, Texas. You can check out a
video
of Brian’s DevFest session.
Next, Ernest Delgado, Jeremy Orlow, and Arne Roomann-Kurrik presented extensions and HTML5 to developers in London, England. Both presentations were actually implemented using HTML5 — the
extensions deck as an extension
and the
HTML5 deck as a webpage
.
Ernest and Arne went on to deliver this content to developers in Spain, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Here’s a
video
of the talk they gave to the Brno, Czech Republic Google User Group.
We love to help developers get their “hands dirty” with code too, so the team organized several hackathons during these trips. Brian led a
hackathon in Sydney, Australia
and
another in Austin
, where developers built lots of great extensions. Meanwhile, Ernest and Arne led students through building extensions at universities in Madrid and Brno.
We’re keen to continue connecting with developer communities around the world. If we haven’t visited a location near you yet, we hope the resources above come in handy. And for those of you who want the thrill of a hackathon experience, our friends at Twilio recently launched an
online extensions hackathon
with awesome prizes. We look forward to trying out what you create.
Keep an eye on this blog for future announcements and event plans. We won’t be traveling for the next couple weeks as we prepare new content for
Google I/O
, but perhaps some of you will be making trips of your own to see us there!
Posted by Arne Roomann-Kurrik and Brian Kennish, Developer Advocates
Learning from the experience of four extensions developers
Monday, May 3, 2010
Since our launch last December, all of us on the Google Chrome Extensions team have been excited to see a steady stream of new developers trying out our platform. Besides reading our
documentation
,
Twitter account
and our
blog posts
, a great way for an interested developer to get up to speed has been to participate in the extensions community. For example, in our
discussion group
, experienced developers often provide advice and answer questions for those working on their first extensions.
We wanted to take this community knowledge sharing process a step further. We reached out to our friends at
Aviary
,
Zemanta
,
Web of Trust
and
Glue
and had them discuss their experiences with Chrome extensions on camera. In the videos below, you’ll learn some of the innovative approaches developers from these companies used to create their extensions. You’ll also hear about the technical challenges they faced, the techniques they used to make their extensions more popular, and some of their upcoming plans:
We’re sure that these short videos did not answer all the questions you have, so if you’re attending the
Google I/O
conference on May 19th, make sure to stop by the sandbox area and meet the Zemanta, Aviary, Web of Trust and Glue teams in person. They’ll be happy to share the benefit of their experiences with anyone looking to write a Google Chrome extension. If you can’t attend, make sure to get involved with the
community
and we’ll get you on your way to making an excellent Google Chrome extension.
Posted by Arne Roomann-Kurrik, Developer Advocate and Christos Apartoglou, Product Marketing Manager
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