For shared computers, each user can save have his or her own settings, as well as switch between two different profiles, such as a work account and a personal account. This allows for a synced experience using Chrome on any device. All you have to do is log in, and all your browser settings appear.

The setting to add new users is in "Personal Stuff" in the Chrome preferences. Google intends this release as a convenience, and that it "isn't intended to secure your data against other people using your computer." It only takes a few clicks to switch users, so treat Chrome as though anyone who opens it can access your browser profile.

Chrome has had a great year full of new features. It's our top consumer Web product of 2011.

You can download Chrome at google.com/chrome.

Which Web browsers do you use, and what do you like about them?

Chrome currently syncs bookmarks, extensions, passwords and other personalized settings to the user's Google account. Signing into Chrome from anywhere, on any computer, will bring up the user's browser, just like at home. But the current stable release only allows one account. Today's beta makes it possible to use multiple Chrome accounts on any copy of the browser.

The Chrome team's blog post makes sync itself sound like a new feature, which it isn't exactly. Chrome added syncing of different pieces of the browser at different times over the last two years. But multiple account syncing is a new way of thinking about it, which is why the Chrome team reintroduced the feature today.

Google engineer Miranda Callahan told us "it's the same sync feature; multiple accounts is the new part. The real new thing is that multiple accounts makes syncing easier, because you can now sync to separate accounts, rather than being restricted to one set of browser preferences."

Convenience Versus Security

Google notes that this feature is built as a convenience, and that it "isn't intended to secure your data against other people using your computer." Since "all it takes is a couple of clicks to switch between users," that's just fewer steps someone would have to take to access your data. It's a trade-off between security and convenience, but having all one's browsing data available with just a login sure is convenient.

Which browser(s) do you use, and why do you use them? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Similar to the Unfriend Finder for tracking lost Facebook friends, GoogleMINUS is a browser extension, not a full online application with a dedicated web presence.

The extension works on the Google Chrome Web browser, Firefox or Safari, and requires the Kynetx browser extension to be installed first. Kynetx is a platform that allows developers to easily build cross-platform apps that run on multiple browsers, adding extra functionality to favorite websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube and more.

Once Kynetx is installed, you can then add any one of these dozens of apps, including GoogleMINUS, after first authenticating via Facebook or Google to establish an account on Kynetx.com. Apps are built by independent third-party developers, and in the case of GoogleMINUS, we have Aaron Frost to thank...or perhaps blame. (We'll see how depressed this makes us first.)

What It Does

The way the GoogleMINUS works is simple - every time someone removes you from a Circle, you are notified via pop-up. More features are coming soon, says Frost, so stay tuned.

But we're not sure if our egos can handle it...can yours?

Biggest New Features: Notifications, Messages, Friend Requests Built-in, Plus Better Chat

According to RockMelt, one of the biggest feature requests was for tools to manage Facebook friend requests, messages and notifications right in the browser. This is now a notable new addition in RockMelt 3, where all three can be found at the top-left corner, similar to Facebook's own website. You can also confirm friend requests and compose messages within the browser.

Facebook Chat has been improved too, with a revamp of  the "Friend Edge" - the feature which displays your friend list alongside the browser window. Now this Friend Edge offers an expandable view where you can see your friends' full names and pictures or even search the list by name. You can also scroll through the list or move the list to the other side of the browser if you prefer.

Special Version of Facebook.com Designed for RockMelt

One of the more interesting new features is the new version of Facebook.com that is displayed when you visit the website from RockMelt. Built with Facebook's help, this new, simplified website removes all redundancies, such as the Friend Requests, Messages, Notifications and friend lists, which are just displayed in RockMelt.

Other Features

In total, there are 31 new features in the update, including the following:

• Brand New Friend Edge
• Expandable View with names and favorite status
• Scrollable Friend Edge
• Swappable Friend Edge and App Edge
• Friend search in Friend Edge
• Chat status can now be changed to online / offline even easier
• Option to hide offline friends
• Improved context menu when right-clicking friends
• Unified View of Friends: Favorite Friends and Other Friends now shown together
• Drag-and-drop to remove or add friends to Favorites
• Confirm and reject Friend Requests added
• View and reply to Messages added
• See Notifications and the associated item of interest (status updates, links, or photos)
• Universal chat experience from RockMelt - no more duplicate chat windows and friend lists
• Initiating chats on Facebook.com will open chats in RockMelt
• Universal Friend Requests, Messages and Notifications right in RockMelt - no more duplicates on Facebook.com
• New Facebook App with Photo Album Viewer
• Quick access to your own Facebook Profile
• Better Chat with Previous chat history now shown when chatting with friends, improved notification when chats are received and a simplified chat window
• Easy status updater
• One-click Quiet Mode button
• Twitter: Option for growl and taskbar notifications for incoming tweets
• (Mac) Scrollable App Edge so you can get updates from even more Apps
• (Mac) Share Improvements
• Quick image picker - just click on the embedded image to see all the ones that can be selected
• Link titles and descriptions can now be edited

Facebook's Involvement?

Facebook's involvement with RockMelt, however, begins and ends with this collaboration. The company has no plans to help distribute the Web browser to its end users, Ethan Beard, director of platform partnerships told The New York Times. That means that RockMelt will rely on word-of-mouth and its own marketing to spread to new users, which will be a challenge. Many don't even know what a Web browser is, as Google sadly discovered, much less how to download a new one.

It's also unclear if RockMelt is truly solving a problem here. Is Facebook actually a better experience as a Web browser than as a website? Or is it more of a distraction? Does it do anything better than the website itself, or does it just do it differently?

Despite its high-profile backers - RockMelt was funded by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreesen - it's not the first company to attempt a "social" Web browsing experience. Flock, a one-time up-and-comer in this same space recently failed, and support for both its Firefox and Chrome-based versions was shut down in April of this year.  While Flock had a number of other challenges, too, one was simply that it failed to convince users that social networking needed to be integrated with the browser itself. Whether RockMelt will go the same route is yet to be seen.

With Opera Mini 6, iPad users have what feels like a "real" Web browser on their tablet computers, thanks to features like the customizable start page which you fill with your own favorite websites, for example.

It also introduces improved tabbed browsing without Safari's 8-page (iPhone) or 9-page (iPad) limit.

In the new Opera Mini 6, you press the "tabs" button at the top of the screen to show your open tabs in a scrollable interface. The tabs lay on top of each other just slightly, allowing you to see enough of the page to identify it, while still conserving space on the smaller screen. To add a new tab, you simply tap the plus (+) button.

So how many tabs can you load? It may depend on the websites you open and how much memory they require, but let's just say this - I got tired of testing this after loading up around 20 or so tabs. I can't imagine needing more than that open at any given time in everyday use, especially on a mobile device. But even if I did, Opera Mini was ready to load more.

The secret to Opera's multi-tabbed experience comes from the way Opera compresses data on the backend. Opera Mini 6 offers up to 90% compression, the company says. This is useful not only when you're on a slower network connection, but it can also help when you're trying to conserve data to avoid paying overage fees for going over your data cap with your mobile operator.

Share to Twitter, Facebook with a Tap (& More)

Social sharing buttons are another new feature in Mini 6, allowing you to quickly and easily share a link on Facebook and Twitter, plus the company's online community at "My Opera" or on vKontakte, a popular Russian social network.

The updated browser also includes a password-saving feature, an alt menu (accessible via long press) for actions like opening links in new tabs, copy and paste, editing a Speed Dial and more. And for Opera desktop users, the browser will sync bookmarks, Speed Dial settings and search engines between your PC and your mobile.

Meanwhile, under the hood, the company promises faster and smoother panning and zooming adjustments, a faster and more fluid experience and faster scrolling.

Like its predecessor, the updated Opera Mini 6 is available as a free download from iTunes here.

Opera made a big deal about getting its mobile browser accepted into the iTunes App Store last year, having assumed that Apple would reject it for competing with iPhone's Safari. But as of today, a search for "browser" in iTunes yields 506 iPad apps and 771 apps for iPhone. While not all of those are actually full Web browsers, of course, many are, and many include the same features Opera touts today, like tabbed browsing or password saving, for instance.

With Mini 6, Opera can no longer count on media hype around Apple's "will they or won't they" app rejection plans, but will instead need to compete on merit. Will Opera Mini 6 deserve a spot on your homescreen? Let us know what you think in the comments.

If you're an early adopter type, you want to get things first. You don't want to wait for the first "unboxing" of a gadget on the Web, you want to be the unboxer, right? You don't want to wait for all the kinks to be ironed out, you want to see them in their first, raw nature. Reading reviews? Who does that anyway?

Opera announced today its own version for the early adopters, Opera Next, the potentially unstable and bug-ridden version of Opera for you early adopter types out there who want to know what's next.

If you're also a Chrome user, then this is like jumping onto the Dev Channel, which gives you a sneak peek of the next somewhat stable and tested version of Chrome. Unlike the Chrome Dev Channel, however, Opera Next provides the experience in a separate browser installation entirely, so you don't have to choose between a stable browsing experience and seeing what's next.

By downloading Opera Next right now, you can see (appropriately) what's coming next with our favorite data-crunching, speed-centric browser - live, interactive speed dials. Speed dials are the buttons that appear when you open a new browser tab in Opera and let you quickly choose among a number of common pages. Now, they have gone interactive:

Interactive speed dials bring in a number of features. For example, the "dial" itself can be automatically updated and live, such as a weather dial that shows up-to-date weather information. Or it can pull in an RSS feed preview, as shown above. It can even collect user specified content, such as images collected and tagged from around the Web within Opera.

Opera Next is available for download today.

We've known for months now that multiple user profiles were on their way to Google's Chrome browser, but now they've come even closer to reality as they hit the Canary build of Chrome.

Google watchdog blog Google Operating System reports today that the feature has made its way to the bleeding edge for early adopters and is even highlighted in Chrome documentation.

According to the Chromium documentation, the feature will also allow users to bring in personalized browser settings associated with their Google profile:

"The multiple profiles feature will allow the user to associate a profile with a specific set of browser windows, rather than with an entire running instance of Chrome. Allowing different windows to run as different Chrome identities means that a user can have different open windows associated with different Google accounts, and correspondingly different sets of preferences, apps, bookmarks, and so on -- all those elements which are bound to a specific user's identity. Having multiple profiles in the Chrome browser also makes it easy to browse with separate identities without having to log in as separate users at the operating system level."

So, how do you get this feature for yourself? Two options - either wait until it comes out on the regular channel (our suggestion for the majority of users) or switch over to the Canary build of Chrome. The Canary Build's name refers to the old practice of miners bringing a canary into a coal mine. If poisonous gasses were present, the canary would die before it would kill the miners, acting as an alarm system. That might give you some idea on just how unstable this build channel is expected to be.

If you decide to jump into the early, early adopter set (or if you're already there), simply enter "about:flags" in the address bar, enable "Multiple profiles" and then click "Relaunch browser" at the bottom of the page. Voila.

[Image via Google Operating System]

That number certainly trounces the statistics from the first day of Internet Explorer 9's recent release, which hit a little over 2 million downloads.

Unlike the launch of IE9, yesterday's "download day" for Firefox 4 didn't have a lot of media publicity pushing users to download the latest browser. That hasn't seemed to stop users from upgrading.

The number of downloads, while very impressive, does not break the record for Firefox, set back in 2008 with the release of Firefox 3. Firefox 4 may be the last big release from Mozilla, as the company is moving to a rolling release schedule, much like Google's Chrome.

Firefox remains the world's second most popular browser after IE, but both browsers have lost market share recently to Google Chrome.

Chrome, which released the beta version its next version yesterday as well, has a reputation for being faster and less bloated than its competitors, and speed and bloat are both things tackled in Firefox 4.

Of course, you can only make so much out of these first day download numbers. Downloading an updated version doesn't mean it will become your browser-of-choice. More importantly, the web now has a couple of greatly improved browsers - good news for users and for developers.

Opera Software, the Norway-based browser maker, announced the opening of its Mobile App Store today. The store, which the company launched in conjunction with Appia, the "largest open application marketplace in the world," will provide apps to Opera's mobile browser users across a number of platforms.

According to the company, the store has already been a hit and its placement in its popular mobile browsers should ensure that it continues with this success.

The store is available in more than 200 countries and during its pre-launch phase it was accessed by 15 million users, hitting 700,000 downloads per day.

Opera uses data compression to increase performance on slower phones and mobile networks, so much of its use is seen on feature phones. According to one recent report, the mobile phone market's nearly 20% growth in the fourth quarter of 2010 was not solely a result of smartphone sales. Both Opera, and its Mobile App Store, could benefit from the continued growth in lower-cost feature phones in emerging markets.

Google released the latest beta version of its browser, Google Chrome, today and at least one of the changes is likely to make a lot of phone tech support folks very happy.

In addition to the standard fare updates of making things generally faster and better, the browser now opens all of its settings in a new browser tab, making them entirely searchable and reachable by URL.

So, while an 80% decrease in CPU usage due to GPU-accelerated video is exciting, even more exciting is a browser settings menu that comes with URLs for all the individual settings. Now, instead of opening the settings menu in a pop-up window, Chrome opens them in a new tab. The settings are fully searchable and if you know where the setting your looking for is, so can the person on the other end of the line.

Rather than giving directions, you can now include direct URLs to the proper settings in chat or email, making giving remote directions that much easier. (I once spent an hour on the phone trying to get to one setting. This is revolutionary in the world of phone tech support, trust me.)

What's the only catch now? The person asking you for help likely isn't running Chrome in the first place. Dang.

Google gives a run-down of this new feature in a video:

Oh, and so we don't leave anything out - the latest version also lets you password protect your passwords. That seems like a good idea.

Yesterday, Google released a Chrome browser extension that lets users block certain websites from showing up in their Google search results. That way, if you never want to see an eHow article again, you don't have to. Kynetx, a company that offers developers a single platform for building extensions for multiple browsers, saw the announcement and immediately offered $500 to the first person that could create an extension "with the same functionality for all 3 browsers and all 3 major search engines."

Less than a day later, the company has announced a winner and released the extensions.

We think this is a very useful tool, we run into spam results way too often. The only problem is that this extension works only in Google Chrome on Google. Kynetx makes it brain-dead simple to build an extension for Chrome, Firefox and IE that will annotate search results on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Kynetx works by providing an AppBuilder tool and a rule-based language to create browser extensions that operate similarly to GreaseMonkey.

The extensions, which are available for Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox, function nearly identically to the one put out by Google yesterday. When you get a page of search results, if you don't want to see a certain domain any more, you simply click the "block" link next to that result. At the end of your search results, it will tell you if something has been blocked and you can click to see the blocked results (the highlighted entries in the screenshot below).

The big difference, of course, is that these extensions work with the top three most used browsers as well as the top three search engines. If you block something on one browser, it automatically synchronizes and keeps that domain blocked in other browsers too. The same goes for search engines. If you block something in Bing, it will be blocked in both Yahoo and Google.

Ed Orcutt, a developer based in Highland, Utah won the $500 prize by getting there first. This is the second time around for Orcutt, who also won another Kynetx contest by creating HoverMe, an extension that helps Twitter and Facebook users discover where their friends hang out on the social Web.

All of the extensions are now available at PersonalBlock.com.

In response, both Mozilla and Google have announced changes to their respective browsers todays, with the addition of "Do Not Track" features for Firefox and Chrome.

According to Global Privacy and Public Policy Leader at Mozilla, Alex Fowler, the new Firefox feature will allow users to set a preference that will broadcast their desire to opt out of ad-based tracking. This will be signalled via a Do Not Track HTTP header with every page view or click they make. "We believe the header-based approach has the potential to be better for the web in the long run because it is a clearer and more universal opt-out mechanism than cookies or blacklists."

Fowler says that this effort is an improvement on cookie-based solutions as it's more persistent and doesn't require a user loading lists of ad networks and advertisers for it to work.

The challenge, of course, with the header is that it requires both the browser and websites to recognize and implement the opt-out. "Mozilla recognizes the chicken and egg problem," says Fowler, "and we are taking the step of proposing that this feature be considered for upcoming releases of Firefox."

Chrome & Keep My Opt-Outs

For its part, Google has announced Keep My Opt-Outs, its stab at addressing the new FTC suggestions. Keep My Opt Outs is a Chrome extension that enables you to opt out permanently from ad tracking cookies.

Unlike the Firefox solution that uses the HTTP header, Chrome's answer does rely on cookies and ad networks. But the extension does address the problem that you face when and if you ever clear your browser's cookies - that you lose all your customized settings, including any site you've opted out of. The new extension for Chrome will keep that opt-out permanently.

There are also granular controls for cookies in Chrome, and Google says it's modified its browser's incognito mode to ensure that all cookies, including "Flash cookies" can be blocked. Once you download the extension, you can check your privacy settings here.

Privacy: The New Browser Battle

Microsoft unveiled its plans for a "Do Not Track" feature for IE9 back in December, shortly after the FTC made its announcement about online privacy. So arguably, Mozilla and Google are both playing catch up to Microsoft here.

In a statement, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz praised the moves, "Mozilla's initiative is to be commended. It recognizes that consumers want a choice about who is tracking their movements online, and it's a first step toward giving consumers choice about who will have access to their data. It also signals that Do Not Track options are technically feasible."

The response to Google's announcement, however, seemed less favorable. In fact, The New York Times cites an FTC spokesperson saying, "We're pleased that Google is engaged in the process, but Mozilla and Microsoft are clearly steps ahead."

Image credits: Flickr user mollybob

Word hit the Web this week, via a Mozilla executive posting on a developer list, that Firefox 4 was finally on its way next month. The only thing standing in the way? About 160 "hard blockers", or significant bugs, that needed to be addressed.

A big part of fixing bugs is testing and today Mozilla announced the next major version of Firefox 4 Beta for users to help test. The latest version includes increased performance, start-up time, bookmarking and graphics capabilities. Read on for the details.

Firefox 4 Beta is built for the way people use the Web today, offering more control over the browsing experience. It introduces a fresh new look and features like App Tabs and Panorama to make it easier and more efficient to navigate the Web. Firefox 4 Beta also includes performance enhancements to make everything faster from start-up time to page-load speed and the performance of Web applications and games. Firefox Sync is integrated into the browser with Firefox 4 Beta, giving you access to your Awesome Bar history, bookmarks, open tabs and passwords across computers and smartphones.

Firefox 4 Beta also enables developers to create fun Web apps and websites. With full support for HTML5 features in Firefox 4 Beta, developers can create new ways for people to enjoy the Web. This includes WebM and HD video, 3D graphic rendering with WebGL, hardware acceleration and the Mozilla Audio API to help create visual experiences for sound. Director of Product Platform Management Chris Blizzard has a full overview of all developer tools in Firefox 4 Beta.

Now, if you're anything like many of us here at ReadWriteWeb, you forgot about Firefox a good six months to a year ago and have fully moved on to Google Chrome. (For me, it's something about the ultra-simple design - I just can't pull myself back to anything else.) But that isn't true for everyone.

When you look at the global browser usage stats, it looks like Firefox has remained essentially even-keeled over the past year, while the most movement has been in adoption of Chrome and abandoning of Internet Explorer. 2009 ended with Firefox at around 31% and a year later, Firefox was at 30%. Chrome, in the meantime, went from around 5% to 15% and Internet Explorer (all versions) dropped from around 56% to 47%. Will Firefox 4 change anything?

Yesterday, Google announced that future versions of its Chrome browser would not support what has become an industry standard - the H.264 video codec - in providing video on the Web. The move leaves Internet Explorer 9 and Safari as the only browsers supporting the technology, which Google says is not "completely open".

While this might sound like a lot of high tech politics (and it very well may be), some suggest that it comes down to the bottom line. In the end, the move may affect the average Web user, leaving them with poor performance and no universal standards for playing video on the Web.

"Back to the Dark Ages"

Justin Day, co-founder and CTO of online video network blip.tv, says that the move goes backwards, instead of forwards.

"I think from our standpoint this looks like a regression. We're all for open formats, but they should be chosen based on their merits, not merely their license," said Day. "This move means that Chrome users will suffer from a worse user experience because they will need to rely on Flash fallback."

Michael Critz, freelance interactive and motion graphic designer, agreed that the move was a regression for the average user.

"Before H.264 arrived digital video was a disaster. MOV, WMV, Real Video, AVI... it was a nightmare meeting the expectations of different users," said Critz. "With H.264 there was a brief period I was finally able to communicate with users, clients and producers clearly. I could say, 'I'll get you an MP4 file.' Everyone knew with confidence that they could watch our video. Now Google wants to send us back to the dark ages."

WebM vs. H.264

According to Day there is no competition between WebM and H.264 on the content producer end of the equation. H.264 wins.

"The fact is that the open source encoders we use make higher quality video at a lower cost using H.264. Unless WebM can outperform H.264, it doesn't make sense for us to support it," said Day.

Critz boiled it down in a similar way.

"There isn't a desktop WebM conversion tool that worth a pile of beans to what's available now for H.264," he explained. "I'm often traveling for video shoots. If I'm on a shoot in Miami and working all day then I get back to my hotel room I know I can depend on my Turbo.264 encoder to give me hardware accelerated H.264 encoding that I can use online, in Flash, on my producers' iPad, and on my clients' iPhones and Blackberry phones."

A Standoff Leaves Users in the Middle

Day said that blip.tv will continue to use H.264 and users whose browsers do not support it will fall back on Flash. Those with H.264 compatible browsers "may notice that their playback experience is improved and that their system is not as sluggish while playing Web video."

In situations like this, it can be all about the money, and CNET's Jason Perlow says that's the bottom line for Google. At the same time, Day says that's the bottom line for them, too. Letting Flash take up the slack is much easier, and cheaper, than encoding video with both WebM and H.264. If Google really is looking to push developers to supporting its WebM codec instead, said Day, extending the move to Android and Google TV "would force our hand."

But what is the solution to all of this? Universal support, says Day.

"In an ideal world, none of this would be browser specific at all," he said. "The video tag should support any codecs the user has installed on their system."

In the end, what we have is a stalemate, with users potentially losing out. Developers, content providers and creators may continue to use what they call a superior product in H.264, while Google, Mozilla and others refuse to support it, meaning that users end up falling back on Flash and getting a more "sluggish" performance than they otherwise might with hardware-accelerated H.264.

Google has announced this morning that upcoming versions of its browser, Google Chrome, will only support "completely open codec technologies". As Chrome continues to grab a larger and larger share of the browser market, it will have more influence on developers and Google says that it hopes this move will help to push things in the direction of a continually more open Web.

Others, however, disagree that this will push the Web in a more open direction and argue it will simply complicate the already muddled switchover to HTML5.

We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles. To that end, we are changing Chrome's HTML5 <video> support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.

Daring Fireball's John Gruber is quick to point out, however, that "If Google is dropping support for H.264 because their 'goal is to enable open innovation', why don't they also drop support for closed plugins like Flash Player?"

So far, the move looks controversial by the tone of the commenters on the Google announcement. One commenter writes "this just looks like a lame duck attempt by Google to promote their own Video Codec." Another commenter asks how this makes sense, writing "Don't see how supporting an inferior codec (even if it is open-source) helps at all since the licensing restrictions on h.264 are gone."

How do you see this impacting the transition to HTML5 standards? Is Google supporting the Open Web or is this another case where users will be justified in asking that Google "Don't Be Evil"?