Sean Walther's Blog

Chrome beats Firefox in Global Usage

According to statcounter, Chrome overtook Firefox globally for the first time.

My traffic still has Firefox at 25%, Chrome at 22.6% and Safari at 28% for overall traffic (most likely due to the high number of iPhone visitors, 25% of seangw.com traffic is mobile).

Good to hear folks around the world are abandoning Internet Explorer.

Tags: Chrome, Firefox, Google, Internet Explorer

YouTube’s New Design

You haven’t seen YouTube’s new design yet?

It’s not your fault, it’s hidden from the public.

If you want to see YouTube’s new design, open up Google Chrome:

1. Launch YouTube.com
2. Make sure you’re logged in (most people are by default)
3. Copy the following line:
   document.cookie=”VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=ST1Ti53r4fU”;
4. On the YouTube window, hit Ctrl+Shift+J (Developer Tools)
5. Put your cursor in the console (at the bottom)
6. Paste that line in, hit enter.
7. Refresh the page, and you’ll see it!

Tags: Chrome, Design, Google, Youtube

Google Chrome 15

Google released Google Chrome version 15.

The only real change, is the addition of a New Tab page.

At the bottom of your New Tab page you’ll see some “bars” (not sure what the official name is yet).  By default it’s split into two options, “Most Visited” and “Apps”.

You can drag apps / websites to create new tabs.  If you want to rename a new tab you double click on the tab and you can give it a name.

The release coincides with an update to the Google App Store.

Here’s a video showing the new features:

Tags: Browsers, Chrome, Google, Google App Store

The Pending Browser Hell – On IE Half Life

Paul Irish, wrote Browser Market Pollution: IE[x] is the new IE6, which details the complexities we have coming up for us as web developers.

I’m glad to see someone fully thought this through.  Browser half life is a significant issue for website accessibility.

When was the last time someone asked you to get your site working in Chrome 9?  Well, that was 3 releases ago, as was IE6 (I’m even ignoring the fact that Chrome 9 was February 2011, and not August of 2001 for IE6).  I’m constantly hearing that a client is asking for IE6 support.  I do all I can to dissuade them (logic, reasoning, and finally .. a 30% surcharge as it requires much more time to debug and handle), but IE6 support is still an issue.  Why?

Because of the half life of Microsoft browsers.

› Continue reading

Tags: Arstechnica, Browsers, Chrome, IE, ie6, IE7, IE8, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Paul Irish

Chrome 12 Released: 3D CSS, Security and Privacy

A few days ago Google released Chrome 12.  If you use Chrome, odds are you have it by now.

If you don’t have chrome, download it, it’s the best browser out there.

To take a peek at some of the new functionality in place, check out Shaun the Sheep.

In the new browser we have:

• Safe Browsing enhancements (protecting you from malware and phishing sites, supposedly this is done without Google knowing the URLs you visit)
• Ability to delete Flash LSO (Local Shared Objects) — essentially Flash cookies which, until now, have only been managed from Adobe’s online settings application
• Hardware Accelerated 3D CSS (technically it was available before, but disabled by default)

› Continue reading

Tags: Adobe, Chrome, Chrome 12, Flash, Google, Google Chrome, Local Shared Objects, LSO, Shaun the Sheep

Firefox 4 Released

The official release of Firefox 4 is today.

Slightly late to join the pack with some of the features.

Since the last major update of Firefox there have been 10 releases of Chrome.

Some of the new features have already been released in other browsers:

• Bookmark sync (Chrome even has a more thorough sync feature)
• Faster JS engine – every browser now sports a “faster” javascript engine with every release
• Partial hardware acceleration – other browsers have better hardware support
• Simplified interface – everyone has it, welcome to the club.  It just doesn’t feel as cleanly done as Chrome.

› Continue reading

Tags: Browsers, Chrome, Firefox

Google Chrome 10 Released

If you’re running Chrome … do nothing.  It’s probably already updated, or will be soon (you can also force the update if you want).

Some highlights of the new browser:

• Faster (duh)
• Searchable / upgraded settings screen
• Password Sync
• Encrypted passwords
• Faster web apps (combination of running in backgrounds, and an upgraded JS engine)

Happy to be using Chrome.

Tags: Chrome, Google

Flash Player 10.2: Stage Video, Multiple Display, Sub-pixel Text

Yesterday Adobe announced the release of their new version of the Flash Player, version 10.2.

Included in the update:

• Stage Video – Full hardware acceleration to the complete video pipeline.  Check out the Getting Started with stage video tutorial.  Web developers need to make changes to take advantage of this.
• Custom native mouse cursors
• Multiple monitor full screen support
• IE9 hardware accelerated rendering
• Enhanced sub-pixel rendering for text

You can install the latest version, or if you have Chrome the new version is included in the next browser update (which is available now I believe).

Tags: Adobe, Chrome, Flash, Flash Player, IE9, Stage Video

Brower Market Share: Chrome at 10.7%, IE 6 at 12.03% – Companies upgrading from IE6

ConceivablyTech has done a good job summarizing the data from NetMarketShare.

From The Third Double-Digit Browser: Chrome Blasts Past 10%:

Google’s Chrome had another successful month and ended 2010 with 10.70% market share, according to Net Applications and almost 16% according to StatCounter. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continued to lose market share on a fast pace while Mozilla’s Firefox is fighting and tightly holding on to the market share it has.

› Continue reading

Tags: Chrome, Firefox, Google, Ie 6, ie6, IE7, IE9, Internet Explorer, mozilla, Net Applications, Safari, web developer

Google Chrome to drop H.264 Support in HTML5 video Tag

Starting in a few months, Google will be dropping H.264 support in Chromew.

This is done to push support for the new WebM (VP8) codec.

Just announced, and it means for those of us who implemented the HTML5 video tag, time to go back and make sure the video is available in WebM or Theora.

Part of the trials and tribulations of working with a partial spec.  This is just going to make our work as web developers more difficult.

Tags: Chrome, Google, HTML5, VP8, WebM