Chromium Blog
News and developments from the open source browser project
NPAPI plug-ins in Windows 8 Metro mode
Friday, July 20, 2012
We recently announced initial support for
Chrome in Windows 8 Metro mode
. One thing that early testers may have noticed is that some existing plug-ins don't work. These plug-ins are built using a technology called
NPAPI
, which,
like ActiveX
, is not compatible with Windows 8 Metro mode.
Note that because
Adobe Flash Player
and Chrome’s
PDF viewer
have both been bundled as Pepper plug-ins running in a sandboxed environment in Chrome, these two widely-used plug-ins will continue to work in Windows 8 Metro mode on all websites.
We’ve noticed that other than Flash and PDF, usage of plug-ins has been steadily decreasing over the past few years, to the point where a relatively small percentage of our users load any of these plug-ins at all. The following table shows some well-known plug-ins along with the percentage of active Chrome users who instantiated that plug-in during a 28-day window:
Plug-in name
Percentage
Flash Player
99.9%
Chrome PDF Viewer
58%
Silverlight
26%
Java
12%
QuickTime
4%
Windows Media Player
2%
This data came from more than 20 million Chrome users who have opted in to share non-identifying
usage statistics
with Google, which are aggregated to understand how Chrome features are used.
We expect NPAPI plug-in usage to continue declining over time, especially since plug-ins can’t run on most phones and tablets. If the trends continue, we look forward to the day when NPAPI can retire peacefully to the countryside.
Posted by Carlos Pizano, Software Engineer and Metro Gnome
Introducing getUserMedia and the Javascript Gamepad API
Monday, July 9, 2012
Today’s
Chrome Beta release
includes two new APIs: the getUserMedia API and the Gamepad Javascript API.
The
getUserMedia API
lets users grant web apps access to their camera and microphone without a plug-in. This is the first step in enabling high quality video and audio communication as part of
WebRTC
, a powerful new real-time communications standard for the open web platform.
In addition, getUserMedia can be combined with other platform features like CSS filters and WebGL to render effects as the <video> is captured. For example, you can
rotate the video and add hipstery filters
,
play a xylophone with motion detection
,
try on glasses with face detection
, and
step into a photobooth
with crazy effects like “Snow” and “Fire.”
Follow WebRTC on Google+
for the occasional awesome demo update, and check out the video below for an in depth discussion of WebRTC at Google I/O.
The Gamepad Javascript API helps developers access input from any standard gamepad connected to the user’s machine, creating a richer gameplay experience with these controllers. Gamepad access was made available for NaCl in May, and since its introduction has enabled awesome games like
AirMech
. We’re excited to see what developers will create in JavaScript.
Tommy Widenflycht, Software Engineer and Real-Time Communicator
Chrome@IO
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Google I/O is just around the corner and all of us in the Chrome team are looking forward to sharing with you what’s new with the open web.
Starting from June 27, we’ve planned more than 20
sessions
and
code labs
. If you are not joining us in San Francisco, you can still watch some of these sessions by attending one of the 350+ I/O
extended events
or by simply tuning in to the
livestream
from anywhere in the world. You can also watch these sessions when you are on the move by downloading the
Google I/O mobile app
.
All other sessions are going to be recorded. Videos from these sessions will be available after the conference on
Google Developers Live
and the
I/O website
.
Finally, you can follow our
Google+ page
and
Twitter account
for more behind the scenes coverage.
Let the fun begin!
Posted by Brian Rakowski, (Miami) Vice President Product Management
Put your extensions on a diet with event pages
Thursday, June 21, 2012
If you’re a Chrome extensions power user, you may be familiar with a task manager that looks like this:
That’s a lot of extensions running! Most of the time, they’re probably just sitting idle, waiting for the user to interact with them. Do they really need to be running and using your memory all the time?
Over the last several months, we've been working on a new feature for the extension system called
Event Pages
that we think will help reduce the memory used by these idle extensions.
How They Work
Event pages are an evolution of
background pages
, with one major improvement: rather than running in the background all the time, an event page only runs when it is handling events. Once an event page becomes idle, it is unloaded, freeing memory until the next time it’s needed. Learn more from the
event page documentation
.
To help event pages support some important use cases, we’re also developing a few new APIs.
The
alarms API
allows an extension to wake itself up at set times, to support features like periodically syncing data to the cloud.
Some
new events
let extensions know when they have been installed, or when their event page is being unloaded.
A
declarative version
of the webRequest API lets extensions do network interception without the need for a background page at all.
Try it Out
We plan to release event pages to Chrome’s beta and stable channels late this summer, but you can start experimenting with them on the
developer channel
today. Try converting your overweight extension to event pages, and
let us know
how it works.
Posted by Matt Perry, Software Engineer
Customer Feedback Improvements in the Chrome Web Store
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
As Chrome Web Store apps and extensions have become more popular, users have been generating a large amount of reviews and feedback for developers. Until now, there was no way to separate a user’s review of an app’s features and quality from developer-focused feedback, such as the reporting of bugs, feature requests, and general questions.
To improve the feedback loop between developers and users, we’ve added a new way to get feedback directly from your users:
This feature provides a clean separation between reporting bugs and compatibility issues to developers and the rating / comments users can leave in the store relating to the functionality and usefulness of a given app. The contents of the feedback forum are publicly visible to everyone, which helps to cut down on duplicate issue reporting.
Turning the Feedback Feature On
In order to enable this feature for your store items, go to your developer dashboard and click on the “Edit your User Feedback preferences” option (highlighted below):
Engaging With Your Users
You should encourage your app’s users to engage with you via the new feedback feature by placing links to your app’s feedback page directly on your site after you’ve activated it. To do so, use the url format “https://chrome.google.com/webstore/support/yourappid
”.
Doing so will increase the likelihood that users will discover the feature and reinforce the idea that you actively support it.
We hope that this new feature will give users a better experience in reporting issues, requesting new features, and asking questions. Similarly, developers will now have a much easier forum to use to have an ongoing social conversation about their products.
If you have any questions about this new feature, you can reach us on our
developer forum
.
Posted by Siddhartha Saha, Software Engineer
Develop for Good and have a chance to win tickets to I/O 2013!
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Cross-posted from the
Google Developers Blog
Would you like to use your coding skills to significantly improve the world, and have the chance to win tickets to Google I/O 2013 for your efforts?
Google.org
has joined forces with the
I/O Extended
team to bring you the
"Develop for Good" Hackathon
. We’re looking for hackers to tackle issues around repressive regimes, engaging citizens in politics and enabling us all to be greener!
Almost anyone can participate in the hackathon from just about anywhere in the world. Many of the Extended events are
already hosting hackathons
, so we encourage you to find an event near you or start your own. If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, Google.org will be hosting a ‘Develop for Good’ hackathon at the
San Francisco I/O Extended event
.
Here are the three challenges developed by the Google teams:
Google Ideas
: Conflict reporting for blackout situations in repressive regimes.
Google Politics & Elections
: Citizen Engagement for Politics & Elections.
Google Green
: Help us all be a little bit greener!
Developers can start preparing, and even coding, right away and then bring their ideas to the Extended event Hackathons during I/O (though we welcome you to participate even if you’re unable to attend an event). Pencils down on Friday night—hacks must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. (PDT) on June 29, 2012 via
this form
.
After June 29th a team of Googlers will judge the submissions for each challenge. We will announce the winning hacks for each challenge by about August 1st, 2012. There will be one winning hack selected from each challenge area, and each will receive up to 5 tickets to I/O 2013, along with the honorary title of "Google Developer for Good, 2012". In addition, we’ll award one of the
latest Chromebooks
to each member of the team producing the best web app across all three challenges.
If you are interested in getting involved, we recommend signing up for an
I/O Extended event
near you and then checking with the organizer to see whether a hackathon is part of the agenda -- or hosting your own Extended event and hackathon!
Find further details of the challenges, prizes, submission guidelines and
hackathon rules
on the
I/O Extended organizers' website
.
Posted by Anna de Paula Hanika, Product Marketing Manager
Make your website faster with PageSpeed Insights
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Cross-posted from the
Google Developers Blog
.
A year ago, we released a preview of the PageSpeed Insights Chrome Developer Tools extension, which analyzes the performance of web pages and provides suggestions to make them faster. Today, we’re releasing version 2.0 of the
PageSpeed Insights
extension, available in the
Chrome Web Store
.
PageSpeed Insights analyzes all aspects of a web page load and points out the specific things you can do to make your page faster. For instance, PageSpeed Insights can inform you about an expensive JavaScript call that blocks the renderer for too long, remind you about that new photo on the front page of your web site that you might have forgotten to resize or optimize, or recommend changing the way you load third-party content so it no longer blocks the page load.
PageSpeed Insights for Chrome is a Chrome Developer Tools extension that analyzes all aspects of the page load, including resources, network, DOM, and the timeline. If you're already familiar with Chrome Developer Tools, you'll find that PageSpeed Insights integrates with a toolset you're already using.
Using technologies like
Native Client
, PageSpeed Insights is able to run the open-source
PageSpeed Insights SDK
securely and with the performance of native code. Leveraging the Insights SDK enables the Chrome extension to automatically optimize the images, CSS, JavaScript and HTML resources on your web page and provide versions of those resources that you can easily deploy on your website.
We hope you’ll give
PageSpeed Insights for Chrome
a try and start optimizing your web pages today. We’d love to hear from you, as always. Please try PageSpeed Insights for Chrome, and give us feedback on our
mailing list
with questions, comments, and new features you’d like to see.
Posted by Libo Song and Bryan McQuade, Software Engineers
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