WebProNews

Tag: Extensions

  • Google and Microsoft Reigniting Browser Wars

    Google and Microsoft Reigniting Browser Wars

    Some things are too good to last, and it appears Google and Microsoft’s BFF cooperation on the browser front is one of them, as both companies are taking swipes at the other.

    Microsoft’s current browser, Edge, uses Google’s Chromium rendering engine. Chromium is an open-source rendering engine that a number of browsers, including Chrome, are powered by. Microsoft retired its own HTML rendering engine in favor of the move to Chromium in an effort to improve compatibility and reliability. Basing Edge on Chromium also lets Microsoft focus more resources on the browser’s front-end and user experience. Microsoft has even added a number of significant features to Edge that have made, or are making, their way into Chrome.

    The cracks started to show up when Google began using user agents to warn Microsoft Edge users they should “upgrade” to Google’s Chrome. User agent strings are the method by which web browsers identify themselves. In the early days of the web, when Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator were vying for dominance, webmasters would routinely code their websites to primarily work with one or the other browser. Webmasters would check a visiting browser’s user agent, or identity, and warn users they needed to “upgrade” if they weren’t running the browser their website was designed to support. Eventually, as the web started becoming more standards-compliant, the practice largely fell out of favor, with webmasters focusing on creating websites that adhered to standards and worked for everyone.

    Now Google seems intent on going back to those dark days of the early web. According to Windows Latest, “Google services are still targeting Edge with scary warnings. In the past, Google has displayed a warning when users opened services such as Google Teams, Gmail, Google Docs and YouTube Music in Edge.”

    Interestingly, if Edge users change their user agent to Chrome, the warning goes away. Google is also not targeting other Chromium-based browsers, such as Opera.

    Microsoft, in turn, has been warning individuals who try to download extensions from the Chrome Web Store that downloaded extensions from “unverified” sources may not be safe.

    Chris Matyszczyk, with ZDNet, reached out to both companies, as well as did a bit of his own investigating.

    “My sniffings around Google suggest the company may have been taken aback by the positive public reaction to Edge,” writes Matyszczyk. “Oddly, Google doesn’t seem to be offering these scary messages to users of, say, the Opera browser.

    “My nasal probings around Redmond offer the reasoning that, well, Microsoft hasn’t tested or verified extensions that arrive from places other than they Microsoft Edge add-ons website. Why, they’re far too busy to do that. And, well, it’s the Chrome web store. Who knows what you’ll find over there? Oh, and Edge gives you more control over your data, so there.”

    Whatever the motivations of both companies, the back-and-forth, tit-for-tat needs to stop. Dragging users back to the ‘90s-style browser wars that emphasized protecting turf over supporting standards is a losing recipe for everyone involved—especially the end user.

  • 500 Chrome Extensions Caught Uploading Private Data

    500 Chrome Extensions Caught Uploading Private Data

    Independent research Jamila Kaya, in cooperation with Cisco-owned Duo Security, helped uncover approximately 500 Chrome extensions that were uploading private data from millions of users.

    Kaya used Duo Security’s CRXcavator—an automated tool designed specifically to help assess Chrome extensions— to “uncover a large scale campaign of copycat Chrome extensions that infected users and exfiltrated data through malvertising while attempting to evade fraud detection on the Google Chrome Web Store.” Initially, Kaya discovered 70 malicious extensions being used by 1.7 million users. Kaya and Duo Security notified Google, who went on to find an additional 430 similar extensions.

    “In the case reported here, the Chrome extension creators had specifically made extensions that obfuscated the underlying advertising functionality from users,” wrote Kaya and Duo Security’s Jacob Rickerd. “This was done in order to connect the browser clients to a command and control architecture, exfiltrate private browsing data without the users knowledge, expose the user to risk of exploit through advertising streams, and attempt to evade the Chrome Web Store’s fraud detection mechanisms.”

    Google quickly removed all 500 extensions, and implemented new policies to make it harder for these type of extensions to reappear. As Duo Security recommends, individuals should periodically review the extensions they’re using and delete any they don’t recognize or no longer use.

  • Facebook Feed Full of Spoilers? A New Chrome Extension, Silencer, Can Help

    Social media is a minefield. I’m not talking about privacy concerns or safety issues. I’m talking about all of your friends who can’t keep their damn mouths shut – the ones who ruin the new episode of Game of Thrones before you get a chance to watch it.

    OMG! I can’t believe Arya got the imp to kill Sansa!

    Just kidding. But that’s the kind of pain and frustration that a Facebook spoiler can inflict. A new Chrome extension hopes to help you avoid such misery, and possibly keep some friends in the process. It’s called Silencer, and it lets you rid your Facebook and Twitter streams of any posts related to any content of your choosing using muted keywords.

    “Silencer is the easiest way to mute spoilers, people, hashtags, terms and phrases on Twitter and Facebook. Silencer lets you mute and filter any content you want out of your Twitter stream or Facebook news feed. Avoid TV show or sports spoilers. Block people that you can’t unfollow but aren’t really interested in anymore. Take back the Internet on your terms!” says the Silencer team.

    Of course, the options aren’t limited to muting TV and movie spoilers. If you’re sick of hearing about someone in the news, let’s say President Obama or John Boehner, you can turn them down as well.

    If you have social media feeds that are in desperate need of some filtering, you can check out Silencer at the Chrome Web Store today.

    [Silencer.io via AllFacebook]

  • Google’s RSS Subscription Chrome Extension Is Back, Sans Google Reader Support

    Google’s RSS Subscription Chrome Extension Is Back, Sans Google Reader Support

    Shortly after Google announced that they would be killing off Google Reader, angering a significant amount of users, they dealt another blow to RSS by yanking the Google RSS Subscription Chrome extension. More anger ensued. Why must you destroy everything that we love, Google?

    Well, here’s a bit of good news: The extension is back.

    Finnur Thorarinsson, the author of the extension, announced its return on a Chromium issues thread. According to him, it was removed by mistake.

    The extension has been updated to remove Google Reader and iGoogle from the lists of supported feed readers, “to prevent [new users] from getting hooked on Reader and then be disappointed in a few months time,” according to the extension’s author.

    Here’s what he had to say:

    I’m the author of the RSS Subscription Extension (from Google) and I wanted to provide a quick update on what Peter said.

    My RSS extension was removed by mistake but it is now up again on the webstore:

    It was not _tied_ to Google Reader, per se, since you choose which feed reader to use — but I’ve now removed the Google Reader option for new users to prevent them from getting hooked on Reader and then be disappointed in a few months time.

    Also, please note that even though clones of my extension exist in the webstore, some of them were copied a long time ago and have not been updated since. They might therefore be vulnerable to security issues and can not really be recommended without making sure they’ve kept up with the times.

    The RSS Subscription extension allows users to quickly add RSS and Atom feeds to a variety of feed readers. That functionality still remains, minus the ability to subscribe via Google Reader.

    So, Google, burned down the house and spared one small possession from the fire. For what it’s worth, Thorarinsson himself is just as upset about the whole Google Reader shutdown as the rest of us.

    “I’m an avid user of Google Reader and am pretty unhappy about the Reader situation as well,” he says.

    [h/t CNET]

  • Event Pages Keep Chrome Slim And Running Strong

    I don’t use a lot of Chrome extensions, but I use a lot of Firefox extensions. I’m going to assume that extensions add a lot of weight to both browsers. It’s worse when you realize that half of those extensions are only used some of the time, yet are still adding to the memory that is being used.

    Firefox still sucks when it comes to managing extensions, but Google is being proactive about fixing the problem. One of the previous solutions was through the use of background pages. It allowed the extension to offload all of its script onto a page that would help reduce the memory footprint of the browser. The only problem is that it continuously ran in the, well, background.

    To help fix that problem, background pages have become event pages. Event pages are a little magical because they only exist when the extension needs it. Once the extension stops running, the event page vanishes freeing up even more memory.

    To make event pages even better, Google will be releasing three new APIs that can work in tandem with event pages to manage memory and extensions. The first is the alarms API that will allow an extension to awake itself at set times. A new event API will let extensions when they have been installed and when they’re being unloaded. They are also developing a new version of the webRequest API that allows extensions do network interception without needing a background page.

    Event pages will be hitting the Chrome beta and stable channels later this summer. They are currently available in the developer channel for experimentation. If you want to build your extension with event pages, you should check out the documentation before you start building.

  • Chrome Extension Lets You Study Smarter By Blocking Distracting Sites

    Chrome Extension Lets You Study Smarter By Blocking Distracting Sites

    The internet is both the best and worst thing to ever happen to productivity. Anyone trying to get any work done in any capacity can attest to that. It’s a world of knowledge at your fingertips – an incredible network of anything and everything you need to succeed. The problem with using the internet to complete work is that to do so, well, you have to be on the internet.

    And that means Facebook, Twitter, reddit, and many many more distractions that pop up to derail you at any moment. Let’s face it – your willpower is simply not strong enough to withstand the pull of cute cats. With that in mind, there’s a simple new Chrome extension to help the easily-kicked-off-course.

    While there are already plenty of ways to block certain websites if that’s what you need to do, the I-AM-STUDYING Blocker is specifically designed to aid the inner procrastinator in us all. The extension allows you to choose which sities you want to keep out of circulation while you work on that important project, and this is what will pop up when you try to access any of those self-banned sites:

    That “snooze” button will allow you to access said site if you truly need a breather from the tedium, but it will only be a brief respite. Snooze allows for 10 minutes of browsing per hour while the extension is enabled.

    The extension even provides some rudimentary analytics that track each user’s top time-wasting sites as well as the percentage of time the user spent browsing per session.

    Of course, if you really want to look at reddit when you should be studying, you can just turn it off. But I’ve found that adopting the “i’ll work for X hours and take a break” mantra doesn’t always work according to plan. This extension at least gives you pause every time you visit a site that’s clearly not going to help you do anything productive.

    [Via reddit]

  • Google+ Redesign Breaks Developer’s Apps And Extensions

    “Thank you Google for breaking all my apps and extensions without warning!”

    That’s what Mohamed Mansour, creator of the Google+ extension that helps the blind use the service, said today on his Google+ profile. What follows is a rant explaining how the changes made to Google+ are self-serving while leaving the developer community up a particularly muddled creek without a paddle.

    To understand this, we have to look at the changes Google announced for their social media platform today. The company added new features to the service including the ribbon that allows access to all your tabs from the left side. It also adds a dedicated page for hangouts. All in all, it sounds pretty awesome for the regular user. The developer… not so much.

    Mansour asks Google why they are “trying to be so evil to the developer community?” While he agrees that change is good, he wonders why Google never provided developers a transition period to test their apps and make sure everything works. He says that his apps and extensions had been downloaded over two million times and that he had poured countless hours of personal time into the platform.

    All of this wouldn’t be so bad if it was just a few problems, but Mansou insists that many machines visiting Google+ now have a broken experience. He says, “many errors will be shown, many popups will be alerted, our thousands of hours of hard work down the drain.”

    In what might be the ultimate slap in the face, Mansou says that Facebook would never do anything like this. While Facebook development does have its detractors, it’s true that the company pushes out early versions of new layouts for developers to test on. Just looking at the weekly Operation Developer Love posts shows you that the platform is dedicated to making sure developers stay on top of things.

    What Mansour seems to be most upset over though is what he perceives as Google building upon their work and not thanking the developer community for it. Here’s the important bit:

    From the entire blog post that Google released, not even a “Thank You” to any of the developers who contributed to the success of the first Google+ version. Look at the new version, it has a lot of what extensions had. But I guess they dislike giving credit where it is due. We are like Ghosts to them! Great news!

    He ends by saying that he will quit Google+ and move onto “another platform to tinker with that will welcome us, Facebook.”

    While this very well could just be the angry rant of a single developer, the 113 comments on his post indicate that it’s a much larger problem than just one man. One developer says that “60 percent of the page [is] now useless info with a slice of G+ stream.” Another says that he gave up on creating apps for Google+ because he saw this very situation happening.

    This isn’t the first time this year that Google has seemingly pissed of the developer collective. When Google I/O tickets sold out in 20 minutes, developers accused the company of not caring about the people that support them.

    While these events may muddy Google’s image in the eyes of developers, it’s important to note how many other times Google has supported the development community. As the developer writer for WebProNews, I’m astounded by the amount of blog posts and alerts Google sends out to make sure developers stay on top of the changes they’re making to Chrome and other services. It’s true that Google should have provided some notice in regards to the Google+ changes, but to claim that Google doesn’t care about developers at all might be a litte much.

    Did the changes made to Google+ break your apps and/or extensions? Is Mansour right to say that Google doesn’t care about the developer community? Let us know in the comments.

    [Lead image: Mohamed Mansour]

  • Google Chrome Web Store Gets Trending View, App Badges

    Google has Google+Chrome+Blog%29″>just announced some improvements to the Chrome Web Store that they hope will make “finding the right app and extension easier.”

    Over the past few weeks, we’ve introduced several new features to make it easier to discover new apps and extensions. These can be especially helpful, as the number of apps and extensions in the Chrome Web Store has grown to the tens of thousands.

    One of those new features, subcategories for apps, was added to the Web Store recently. Now, a new crop of improvements like Trending view, autocomplete search, and app badges join the party.

    First, Trending view is currently an “early version” of what it will eventually be, says Google. Located under the “Popular” tab on the left hand side, the Trending view shows apps and extensions that are “growing fastest” in the Web Store. The speed of their growth is ranked from “warm” to “on fire.”

    Chrome Web Store Trending View

    The new app badges appear on the landing pages of some apps. They are clickable, and generate a list of similar apps – or “apps that have the same functionality.” The two types of app badges you can currently see in the store are “playable on Google+” and “offline,” meaning that particular app will work offline.

    Lastly, the search box now has autocomplete – a helpful addition indeed. The Chrome blog also adds that in the next few weeks, most all of the Google+ games will hit the Web Store.

  • Firefox 10 Now Available

    Firefox 10 launched today as a silent update so as not to disturb intrepid Web users.

    The update, as we reported yesterday, brings new features to the browser, but nothing worth celebrating over.

    The update features extension improvements with most extensions that work on Firefox 4 working on Firefox 10. It includes support for full-screen Web apps and anti-aliasing for WebGL applications.

    Firefox 10 also debuts the new “Extended Support Release” for businesses. This allows the browser to only download necessary security updates so businesses no longer have to deal with a new browser update every six weeks. The ESR version will change every seven releases, so November will be the next update for those users.

    For those unaware, Firefox changing versions so rapidly is due to Chrome being on the same release schedule. While Internet Explorer is still the most used browser on the Web, Chrome and Firefox are battling neck-and-neck for the number two spot. The sped up release schedule is helping Firefox remain competitive.

    Firefox 10 will be released as a silent update to current users today. If you haven’t used Firefox yet, now is a good time to try it out. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux today.

  • Firefox 10 Launching Tomorrow

    Firefox 10 Launching Tomorrow

    Firefox is moving on to double digits tomorrow with the release of Firefox 10.

    PC Mag is reporting that the update will apply to the desktop formats as well as the mobile edition for Android. For those “people,” who never upgraded to Firefox 4, version 3.6 will be updated to version 3.6.9 which only adds security and stability fixes.

    During a meeting today, Firefox announced a new hire for Mozilla’s marketing team. Pete Scanlon, who previously worked for Google’s campaigns for Chrome, is now working for Mozilla.

    As with the past few full version updates to Firefox, there’s not much going on for consumers. The new capabilities are mostly for developers.

    A big improvement from previous versions is how Firefox 10 handles extensions. Instead of rejecting extensions not specifically made for Firefox 10, it will assume extensions are compatible unless otherwise noted. Most extensions compatible with Firefox 4 will work fine on Firefox 10.

    Interestingly, Mozilla reported that 75 percent of all extensions in use were not acquired from their own addon site. They have updated the browser to support those extensions as well.

    The update will also allow users to hotfix update extensions themselves to address minor issues.

    The Android version of Firefox 10 will get multitouch gesture support. Firefox Sync will also be updated to allow users to sync their phone or table with Firefox without having to be at their desktop computer.

    The changes for developers are more robust featuring enhancements to code editors and anti-aliasing for WebGL content. CSS3D Transforms will bring 3D animation to 2D objects. They will also add in support for full-screen Web applications.

    Firefox 10 will also be the first Extended Support Release version. The program was made for enterprise IT professionals who were concerned that the more-frequent Firefox updates were unsupportable in a business environment.

    Firefox 12, which is a few more weeks out, will finally add a tab page that users of Chrome and Opera enjoy now.

  • Nuke Comments Chrome Extension Lets You Rid Yourself Of Google+ Annoyances

    Are you a prolific Google+ user who often invites unsavory comments from unsavory people on your posts? If so, a new Chrome extension will allow you to get rid of your problem in two clicks.

    It’s called Nuke Comments and it drops a bomb on annoying commenters. Here’s the description, courtesy former Google engineer Tzafrir Rehan on Google+:

    Are you getting comments on Google+ from people that you don’t want commenting on your posts? Time to go nuclear on them! Hit the Nuke button and delete the comment – Nuke Comments will then block them so you’ll never be bothered by their annoying comments again.

    Two clicks, and you’ll never have to hear from John Q. Spammer again.

    The “Nuke” button will appear right next to the “+1” button under the comments, as seen below:

  • No SOPA Chrome Extension Notifies You When You Visit Sites That Hate The Internet

    Worried that your average, everyday interweb browsing could be inadvertently supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act? Well, you’re in luck.

    Now there’s an extension for your Chrome browser that will notify you when you visit a website of any company or organization that is known to support SOPA.

    It’s called No SOPA and was created by Andy Baird (@ajbaird) and Tony Webster (@webster).

    “Boycott? Nasty letter time? You decide,” they say.

    Users have reported that some sites have not prompted the big red bar that denotes the site as a SOPA-supporting property. The creators say that they will attempt to improve the list as they go. Applicable domains are “checked against a local list – the extension does not communicate with any external hosts.”

    Here’s the extension in action:

    And again:

    While being notified when you are frequenting the property of someone who wants to kills the internet is important, will it work? Would you immediately stop browsing a site if you saw that little red bar? I would assume that anyone who would install the extension would steer clear of any site baring the warning label.

    If only we could make the extension mandatory…

    If you want to read more on SOPA, check here.

    [Via Reddit]

  • Chrome Team Names Favorite Extensions

    Chrome Team Names Favorite Extensions

    Anyone who’s still at a loss as to why they should try Chrome – or is using it, but feels a little adrift – may want to look at a new list Google’s put into circulation.  The Chrome team has identified 19 apps that can make the browser much more useful.

    Here’s the list of apps in the order Google named them: Opinion Cloud, Google Voice, AutoPager, Turn Off the Lights, Google Dictionary, After the Deadline, Invisible Hand, Secbrowsing, Tineye, Slideshow, Google Docs/PDF Viewer, Readability, Chromed Bird, Feedsquares, ScribeFire, Note Anywhere, Instant Messaging Notifier, Remember the Milk, and Extension.fm.

    Google ChromeTogether, those options cover all sorts of contingencies.  Not that other apps might not fulfill the same functions for Firefox users, of course, but Google’s list makes these apps easy to find, and the Chrome team’s official endorsement counts for a lot with regards to quality.  It’s possible Chrome will see an uptick in use as a result.

    Certain developers should definitely see the installation rates of their apps increase, too, making this move a nice and unselfish gesture on Google’s part.

    Jonathan Rosenberg, a senior vice president product management, concluded on the Official Google Blog, "We’re proud of the Chrome browser and the great extensions that its developer community has created, and we hope you enjoy them!"

  • Google Gives Wave Another Push With Extensions Gallery

    Google Wave didn’t do so well when it came out of the gate, and Buzz’s privacy problems stole all of the attention not too long after.  But now that Google’s addressed most of Buzz’s faults, it’s trying to move forward again by rolling out an extensions gallery for Google Wave.

    Interestingly, this initial version is still a little rough around the edges in terms of functionality.  Also, there are just 18 extensions listed at the moment, and Google’s suggested design tweaks are on the way.  We’ll let you decide whether the company’s gotten ahead of itself or made a smart move by involving developers and users as soon as possible.

    As for what’s available, the extensions represent an interesting mix of useful and fun/frivolous stuff.  One’s called Wave Sudoku, while others function as poll gadgets, phone and video chat aids, and a weather forecast provider.

    Anyway, Dan Peterson, Google Wave’s Product Manager, explained on the Google Wave Developer Blog, "The gallery is simply a set of waves containing extension installers (the puzzle pieces).  The first wave, ‘Read me first‘ contains an introduction to extensions and how to use them.  In many cases, those particular waves won’t maintain their read/unread status in Google Wave preview; we’re working on this."

    It should be interesting to see how long Google takes to make its tweaks, and how quickly the extensions gallery is populated.