ReadWriteWeb

Catching up to Chrome is just part of the Firefox roadmap for 2012. Mozilla's Asa Dotzler has updated the strategy and roadmap for desktop Firefox in 2012. While the Mozilla folks have several original ideas and goals, there's a lot in the first half of the 2012 roadmap that looks very familiar to Chrome users as well. The really interesting features come in the second half of 2012, and relate to user privacy and account management. Third party cookie management and tracking could be a killer feature for Firefox later this year.

If you have a look at the desktop feature roadmap, you'll see that Q1 and Q2 have quite a few features that are either already in Google Chrome. For example, there's sync for add-ons, assuming add-ons work across releases, silent update and a redesigned new tab page.

The next version of Chrome will help older computers catch up with rapidly accelerating Web-based graphics. The upcoming Chrome release will improve the performance of hardware-accelerated 2D animations using Canvas, which include many Web-based games and other graphically-intensive sites.

It will also let systems with older GPUs use SwiftShader for 3D graphics instead of WebGL, which older GPUs can't handle. It won't look quite as good, but users with older systems will still get more 3D content than they currently can. The new Chrome beta with these features is available today.

Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door. Build a better mouse lock for Web browsers, and you might make browser-based gaming a lot more attractive. Vincent Scheib has been working on a W3C specification and feature for Chrome that will put browsers another step closer to competitive with native games.

This might sound like a little thing, but the lack of the mouse lock feature holds back browser-based games. Here's the problem: Unless you're using a plugin, the way that browser-based games handle the mouse is clunky. Let's say you're trying to play a shooter like Quake III in the browser. Because the game can't "grab" the pointer, when you scroll too far outside the game screen it sends your cursor outside the browser window and disrupts game flow. (And probably gets you fragged.)

When Google announced that the Chrome browser would become its own operating system and run on netbooks, the thought around the tech community was that eventually Google would have to merge Chrome with Android. After all, what is the point of supporting two disparate mobile operating systems? The convergence has not yet occurred but may have taken a step further today as Google announced Chrome for Android available on devices running version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Chrome for Android is a win for everybody. Except, of course, most users. As of Google's latest Android platform numbers, only 1% of devices are running Ice Cream Sandwich. That will change as 2012 moves along with adoption accelerating from new device purchases and updates. Chrome for Android immediately becomes one of the go-to browsers on the platform, which is good for HTML5 development, reliability and security.

Google Chrome released a new beta version today that takes the insurgent browser's instant and predictive features even further. The Instant Pages feature that pre-loads Web pages in the background as you search has been expanded to the omnibox, Chrome's combination address and search bar. If you're typing in a site you visit all the time, and the address auto-completes, Chrome will begin pre-rendering the page, reducing load time.

The new beta also improves Chrome's security against malware attacks. The Chrome team reports that malware attacks exploiting user-initiated processes are on the rise. The browser can now analyze executable files - such as ".exe" and ".msi" files - that you downloaded yourself. Chrome will warn users to delete suspicious files.

Worried about whether or not your favorite Web site is supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act? A new Chrome extension seeks to lift those fears.

After installing No SOPA, users get a warning message reading "SOPA Supporter! This company is a known supporter of the dangerous 'Stop Online Piracy Act'," every time they visit a SOPA-supporting Web site.

Google Chrome made a booboo, and now its own company is punishing it. Yesterday, the news broke that bloggers were being paid to use SEO spam tactics to boost the Google Chrome website's page ranking in search. Hundreds of paid articles, many of them totally incoherent, were used to promote Chrome. At least one of them violated Google's policy against paid links. As Google's search guru Matt Cutts wrote in 2009, "paid posts should not affect search engines."

So that was awkward. Fortunately for Google, the infraction could be blamed on Unruly Media, the third-party company Google hired to promote Chrome. Links from the paid posts were supposed to use the rel="nofollow" tag, so they wouldn't affect page rank. At least one blogger didn't, even though Unruly "advised" them to. In order for Google to get out of this mess, it would have to punish itself as it has done to others. Sure enough, Google says it will reduce Chrome's page rank.

Google and Firefox renewed their partnership last week, ensuring that Google will remain Firefox's default search engine (and major source of revenue). Kara Swisher reported that the deal brings in just under $300 million per year for Firefox, amounting to almost $1 billion total. Google has to cough up the cash to prevent this coveted spot in the popular browser from going to Bing and Microsoft.

MG Siegler wondered why Google would bear this expense, "paying all that money to a competitor." He considered whether antitrust concerns played into the decision, or whether it was about mobile dominance. But Chrome engineer Peter Kasting offered a simpler answer today: "Google is funding a partner," not a competitor.

Last year Xmarks, the cross-platform bookmark sync service, narrowly escaped being shut down for good. After tons of media attention focused on the shutdown, and then acquisition by LastPass, a funny thing happened – the service received almost no attention at all in 2011. So whatever happened? I caught up with LastPass CEO Joe Siegrist about the features added to Xmarks this year, the fate of the original Xmarks team and what he calls anti-competitive behavior on Apple's part.

Ending a month of speculation, Google has renewed its search exclusivity deal with Mozilla, who has long featured Google as the default browser on its Firefox Web browser.

When the deal expired in November, it gave rise to speculation that Google might not renew it, which would deprive Firefox of about 84% of its annual revenue. That possibility seemed bolstered by the fact that Google's Chrome was said to have recently ousted Firefox as the number two browser on the market. An end to the deal could have put the future of Firefox in jeopardy, although some thought the ominous predictions were overblown.