Tag Archives: Chrome Web Store

Computers

The new Chrome App Launcher: Google's backdoor into the offline world

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The

On Friday, Google gave Windows users something that they’ve been pining for: A Start button. And even better than that, Google’s version keeps you on the desktop and actually opens a pop-up menu full of programs, unlike the nerfed Start button that’s slated to appear in the Windows 8.1 update.

No, Larry Page hasn’t decided to jump into the crowded Windows Start button replacement arena. Instead, Google’s engineers quietly dragged Chrome OS’s App Launcher—the Googlefied equivalent of a Start button—over to Chrome for Windows today. The seemingly simple addition is a major step in Google’s push to bring Web standards to walled gardens.

Big things in little packages

The Chrome App Launcher is exactly what you’d expect: A taskbar icon that lets you quick-launch Chrome browser apps, such as Gmail, the Play Store, Angry Birds, and yep, even Chrome itself. Simple, right? But the little launcher is a Trojan horse for much bigger ambitions—especially when paired with packaged Chrome apps.

Packaged apps are available now, but since Google has yet to highlight them in the Chrome Web Store, you might not be familiar with them. Packaged apps are programs built on the bones of the Chrome browser. They use traditional Web languages such as HTML5 and CSS, but they run as separate, standalone software that can also be used offline, unlike traditional browsers.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Infiltration complete: Google's Chrome app launcher lands on Windows

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Play Cut The Rope on your desktop with the Chrome packaged app.

It’s still early days for packaged apps, but there are a number you can try out, such as a 

After months of behind-the-scenes teases, Google appears to have quietly introduced the Chrome App Launcher in the stable version of Chrome for Windows. The Chrome OS feature—ported over to the Chrome for Windows developer channel in February—wasn’t available through a search of the Chrome Web Store or advertised on the site’s front page at this writing, but Windows users can install it now by navigating directly to the Chrome App Launcher page inside Chrome’s app store.

First spotted by Engadget, the new feature is Google’s incursion into the desktop PC, creating a self-sufficient Chrome ecosystem inside Microsoft’s OS. The Chrome App Launcher lets you directly fire up any Chrome Web app or packaged app right from the Windows taskbar—even when Chrome itself isn’t running.

Packaged apps are HTML 5-based standalone desktop apps based on Chrome that don’t look anything like your Web browser. There are no tabs, URL address bars, or bookmarks, but these apps do rely on Chrome’s underlying infrastructure and are installed via the Chrome Web Store.

Play Cut The Rope on your desktop with the Chrome packaged app.

It’s still early days for packaged apps, but there are a number you can try out, such as a generic text editor and an IRC client, as well as known quantities like Cut the Rope, the Economist, and Weather Bug. For a list of interesting packaged apps to test see this post from Pocketables.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Shopping the Chrome Web Store: name brands, knock-offs and no-shows

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When I set out to shop the Chrome Web Store, I wasn’t just browsing for fun. The The Chromebook Pixel’s many charms had lured me toward Google’s Web-centric Chrome OS, but I needed to know whether it offered an ecosystem I could live with long-term—especially since I’d be leaving behind all the Windows applications I’ve used for years. The Chromebook’s popularity has only increased over the past year, so I couldn’t be the only Windows user with a wandering eye.

Robert Cardin
The Chromebook Pixel lured me into the Chrome ecosystem, but could I really forsake Windows?

I already knew that the Chrome Web Store offered decent alternatives to the business apps that I use most of the time. The bigger adjustment for me required basic trust. A Microsoft application, whatever its faults, rolls out on the desktop like a marching band, with a drum major, fanfare, and neat formations. You know you’re getting something from a big company with some level of oversight and accountability. But the Chrome Web Store, has no marching band—just a mob of random players, all vying for my attention. Who are these people? Can I trust their apps? Finding the classy ones—and avoiding the creepy and the crummy ones—is a DIY job I didn’t want.

Creepy: Bad Piggies malware and other epidemics

There are good reasons to be wary. Late last year, impostor versions of the popular Rovio game Bad Piggies created a malware epidemic in the Chrome Web Store. Before Google could get a handle on the situation, tens of thousands of users downloaded fake Bad Piggie games that displayed extra ads and sniffed out passwords. And just a few months ago, another Chrome app scam hijacked users’ Facebook accounts to generate fake Likes and bogus posts.

Malware isn’t exclusive to the Chrome Web Store, of course, but the way Google handles new apps invites trouble. Apple and Microsoft vet apps before allowing them to post on their app stores, but Google’s automated scanning procedure checks new apps after they appear in the store. “That’s a losing gambit,” says Paul Roberts, editor of The Security Ledger, “because it still allows a window of time for malicious content to appear on the Chrome Web store.”

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From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2034454/shopping-the-chrome-web-store-name-brands-knock-offs-and-no-shows.html#tk.rss_all

Computers

Google’s RSS Chrome extension returns to Chrome Web Store but Reader-less

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Google may have upset a small, yet vocal minority, over the impending closure of Google Reader on July 1, but the company hasn’t given up entirely on RSS.

The search giant’s RSS Subscription Extension has reappeared on the Chrome Web Store after it disappeared a few days after the Google Reader shutdown announcement. It turns out that the RSS extension removal was not intentional, according to the author of the Chrome add-on.

“My RSS extension was removed by mistake, but it is now up again on the webstore,” Google software engineer Finnur Thorarinsson said Tuesday on a Google Code forum thread. A Google spokesperson was unavailable as of this writing to comment on the return of its Chrome RSS extension.

Google’s Chrome RSS Subscription Extension

is a convenient way to add an RSS feed to an online feed reader in just a few clicks. The new version of Google’s RSS extension removes the options to add feeds to Google Reader and iGoogle, the search giant’s personalized home page service that will shut down on November 1.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Rogue Chrome extension racks up Facebook 'likes' for online bandits

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Security researchers at Bitdefender have discovered a new phishing scam that installs a malicious extension in the Chrome web browser in order to turn Facebook ‘likes’ into cash for cyber crooks.

The exploit begins with a malicious link embedded in spam email, says Bogdan Botezatu, a senior e-threat analyst at Bitdefender. The link ushers you to the Chrome Web Store, where you download an extension for a “business” Flash player—assuming you’re foolish enough to click on spam links.

Once this so-called “business” version of Flash is downloaded, it monitors your browser activity. When you land on a Facebook page with Chrome, the malware checks your browser cookies to see if you’re logged into Facebook. If you are, it will fetch a piece of Javascript code that tells the extension what to do with your account.

“They can run as many campaigns as they want,” Botezatu said in an interview. “All they have to do is fetch a new script.”

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Google Chrome: How to make it faster, smarter and better than before

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If you aren’t using Google Chrome yet, you should be. When it comes to browser speed—and especially JavaScript performance—Mozilla and Microsoft can’t compete with Google. But Chrome can go even faster if you’re willing to make some adjustments under the hood.

To help with that effort, we’ve gathered for your consideration a few of our favorite free Google Chrome. Experience the power enhancements they provide, and in a few days you’ll wonder how you ever survived online with a bare-bones browser.

If you’re a more-advanced power user, you can dig into Chrome’s experimental options that use your CPU and GPU to optimize your Web browsing. Those options are buried in an obscure Chrome menu to prevent casual surfers from accidentally borking their browsers, but we’ll describe where the options are and how they work. Speed freaks unite!

Power extensions

If you don’t already have the latest version of Google Chrome installed and running properly on your system, take those preliminary steps now. Afterward, open the Chrome Web Store, and you’ll see an overwhelming array of Chrome apps for augmenting your browser with games, music players, and social networks. The extensions we’ll focus on here are designed to make Chrome leaner, meaner and more efficient.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Science & Technology

Google aims to win developers over to new image format WebP

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(Phys.org)—In 2011, news circulated over Google’s enhancements to WebP, the image format set to outdistance JPEG and, with more features in a newer version, to take on Portable Network Graphics, another graphics format. The promotional point has been that WebP can create smaller, better-looking images that can help make the web faster. Now, a Thursday posting on The Chromium Blog shows how Google is actively promoting WebP, hoping that developers and other allies will see its edge. Google announced that it started using WebP in its Chrome Web Store, with impressive results. “The Chrome Web Store uses many large promotional images and tiles on its home page, making it a very heavyweight page,” wrote Stephen Konig, Product Manager, in the blog, “Using WebP to Improve Speed.” …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org