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.

Many of Google's recent browser-based updates have pushed the envelope on hardware performance. For example, in October, Google released 3D views in Google Maps that use WebGL, so lower-end GPUs can't display them. Even some relatively new laptops can't handle WebGL. The new SwiftShader capabilities in Chrome will bring some these 3D graphics to less capable systems.

Other recent Chrome releases contained advanced audio APIs and the ability to run native code inside the browser. Others focused on speeding up page loads by pre-caching pages. Chrome engineers are even building new image formats to push the Web forward. These uncompromising updates were moving pretty quickly for a while, so the next version of Chrome will let older computers catch up.

If you feel like testing Google's browser capabilities as soon as they come out of the shop, jump in the Chrome beta channel.

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.

The best thing that Chrome for Android brings to the table is robust HTML5 integration. The native Android browser is known to have mediocre HTML5 performance (pre-Ice Cream Sandwich) but Chrome for Android promises to make up what has been lacking.

That will include a hardware-accelerated canvas, overflow scroll support, HTML5 video specs support along with Indexed DB (for offline caching, presumably), WebWorkers and WebSockets.

The biggest advantage for mobile HTML5 though will be the ability to bring Chrome tools to the Android platform. If a developer knows how to work in Chromium, working in Chrome for Android will be a seamless transition. This is where the possible convergence of the Chrome and Android platforms will take place.

"Much of the code for Chrome for Android is already shared with Chromium and over the coming weeks, the Chromium team will be upstreaming many new components developed for Chrome for Android to Chromium, WebKit and other projects," Arnaud Weber, Google's engineering manager for Chrome, wrote in a blog post.

Chrome for Android has already been put through its initial HTML5 tests with a score of 343 (+10 bonus) on HTML5Test.com. The native ICS browser scored 256 (+3 bonus) which put it in the middle of the pack in terms of mobile browsers.

Enhancements For Users

Chrome for Android promises to be fast, simple and reliable. It pre-loads pages with the Chrome Omnibox (only when Wi-Fi is enabled) and predicts where and what you want to navigate to. It also brings a simple user interface to the Android browser environment, something that many users will be very grateful for after dealing with some of the more complicated UIs from third-party options like Opera, Dolphin HD and Skyfire.

The best aspect of Chrome for Android though will be the ability to sign in to your Chrome browser and have access to all of your bookmarks, tabs and browsing history from anywhere. If you leave your computer with open tabs, Chrome for Android will recognize those and open them for you. Chrome will also be able to track your browsing history to better provide search suggestions. Like many other mobile browsers with desktop presences, Chrome for Android will also be able to sync your bookmarks to your mobile device.

This 1% Problem

We are going to be perfectly honest. No writer at ReadWriteWeb has a device running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. So, we could not put the Chrome Beta through the paces (most RWWers use iPhones as well).

And there is the rub. Next to no one has Ice Cream Sandwich yet, outside a couple Galaxy Nexus users. This poses a problem, if a temporary one. Many existing Android devices are never going to get the ICS upgrade and the devices that have it pre-installed are still in early adopter/Android geek territory.

For many, the Chrome for Android is just an exciting announcement to shrug at since most will never see it on their current devices. Chrome for Android developers have plenty of time to roll out dynamic Web apps before the mass of Android users actually gets the browser. So, perhaps there is a positive side.

Excited for Chrome for Android? Will you develop for it? What about signing in to Chrome across all your devices? Let us know your reactions in the comments.

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.

Chrome's blistering pace of powerful, new features made it our best consumer Web product of 2011. The most recent version added support for multiple user profiles that sync, so users can access their browser data from any copy of Chrome using their Google ID. That update was more about convenience than security, but the upcoming release will bring that focus back.

Chrome is now the #2 browser in the world after Internet Explorer, but it's not just the features that make Chrome worth watching. Chrome developers, with the support of the open-source community, are pushing the Web ahead. Chrome is building upon new text-to-speech APIs and advanced audio features. It's pushing a new image format to challenge JPEG and PNG by reducing image file sizes, making the Web load faster.

A Browser For A Better Web

Chrome and Firefox developers are working together on Web Intents, standard protocols for Web apps to communicate, even if they don't know each other. As Chrome developer Peter Kasting wrote on Christmas Eve, the teams see each other as partners, not competitors. By improving their browsers together, they're making the Web better. A better Web means more eyeballs on Google services. That explains why Google was willing to drop a billion dollars to remain Firefox's default search provider.

It also explains why the Chrome team works so relentlessly to make browsing faster. In this instance, consumers' and Google's interests are aligned, and that makes for one heck of a Web browser.

You can try out the new Chrome beta today.

And no, this post was not sponsored by Google. We wrote it ourselves. ;)

Which Web browser(s) do you use, and why?

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.

"Boycott? Nasty letter time? You decide," Andy Baird and Tony Webster, the extension's creators, wrote on the extension Web site.

Hackers have already been working on other fixes to use if the law passes, including a satellite network and a Firefox add-on that directs the browser directly to a blocked site's IP address. Such extensions are being created in part to show the regulations, if passed, will be ineffective in stopping traffic to blacklisted sites.

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.

"We've investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site's PageRank for a period of at least 60 days. We strive to enforce Google's webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users. While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site."

At least Google won't come out of this looking like a hypocrite. It goes to great lengths to punish sites that play games with search ranking, and it already takes heat for favoring its own sites. PR-wise, there was no way out of this for Google but to punish the Chrome site.

But it sure does look sloppy. Google's left hand didn't know what its right hand's hired hands were doing. If the Chrome team knew that paid links were a violation of the search team's policies, it should have been more careful to avoid this. Google is relentlessly tweaking search, its core product. It's making its other products, particularly Google+, more important. Getting caught in this old-school SEO trick is not what Google needed to instill trust.

Now that the story has broken, the results look very different, but check out what a search for "This post is sponsored by Google" turned up before:

Image, follow-up, pretty much the whole scoop via Search Engine Land

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.

"One thing is certain: Google is not paying Mozilla a billion dollars out of the kindness of their hearts," Siegler wrote. "Doing so would be irresponsible to their shareholders. Again, they're paying all that money to a competitor." But Kasting contends that this is a misconstruction.

"People never seem to understand why Google builds Chrome no matter how many times I try to pound it into their heads," Kasting says. "It's very simple: the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly as possible."

According to Kasting, "It's completely irrelevant to this goal whether Chrome actually gains tons of users or whether instead the web advances because the other browser vendors step up their game and produce far better browsers. Either way the web gets better. Job done."

Chrome and Firefox Can and Do Coexist

"It's not hard to understand the roots of this strategy," Kasting says. "Google succeeds (and makes money) when the web succeeds and people use it more to do everything they need to do. Because of this Chrome doesn't need to be a Microsoft Office, a direct money-maker, nor does it even need to directly feed users to Google. Just making the web more capable is enough."

By funding Firefox, Kasting explains, Google is not concerned about competition with Chrome. It's keeping another important browser alive. "Firefox is an important product because it can be a different product with different design decisions and serve different users well," he says. Kasting says that Google supported Firefox before work on Chrome even began, and it only built Chrome because it thought it would drive the Web to improve even faster.

The Teams Are Committed to Working Together

There's plenty of past evidence to support this interpretation. For example, even though Web apps are one of Chrome's most important revenue streams, Chromium and Firefox engineers have been working together to build open standards for Web apps to communicate.

On its own, Chrome has pushed the envelope for Web technologies, but as Kasting points out, "Mozilla is clearly committed to the betterment of the web, and they're spending their resources to make a great, open-source web browser." A better Web, according to Kasting, will serve Google's goals no matter what.

We've wondered this year whether Firefox was doomed, but if Google is committed to it, for the sake of the Web itself, the answer is certainly not.

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.

When the original deal was signed in 2008, Google was only getting started with Chrome, which then grew to be a significant player in the browser market.

Still, Firefox is used by millions of people and Google still wants a piece of that action. If the Google deal were to expire, it's conceivable that Microsoft could swoop in and replace it with Bing, handing a significant chunk of the browser market share over to one of Google's chief competitors.

Whatever Google would gain by pulling the financial rug out from beneath Firefox would be overshadowed by it losing even a few points in the search market, which is where most of Google's revenue comes from.

Google has marketed Chrome as a speedier, more secure browser and capitalized on the familiarity people already have with the Google brand and its products. In the beginning of the month, at least one firm who's counting said Chrome had eclipsed Firefox as the #2 browser behind Internet Explorer for the first time ever. These numbers vary from source to source, but there's no denying that Chrome is growing fast. Even so, the company behind it evidently sees no reason to try and bury Firefox even further at this stage of the game.

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?

Basically, we're looking to highlight tools that are innovative, widely used and/or wildly useful for Web developers.

jQuery and jQuery Mobile

No list of Web developer tools would be complete without jQuery, the ever-popular JavaScript library that we've covered extensively on ReadWriteHack.

Even Microsoft has made the case for jQuery and technology surveys show jQuery well in the lead for 2011, moving from 27% of sites surveyed in December 2010, to 42% in December 2011.

Mobile developers got a boost this year with the introduction of jQuery Mobile 1.0. jQuery mobile is meant to work on "every popular mobile, tablet, e-reader and even desktop" platform. That's a tall order, but the response so far to jQuery Mobile seems to be overwhelmingly positive.

That's not to say that jQuery is free of critics. Some believe that jQuery is in need of a little slimming down. Of course, this is not atypical for any project reaching maturity. I'm not taking a position either way, but I would note that you rarely see a successful project that doesn't generate a backlash of some sort.

Modernize IE with CSS3 PIE

Everbody loves pie, especially frustrated Web developers who need to cope with the shortcomings of older versions of Internet Explorer. You can't fix the market and convince millions of people to upgrade to a more modern browser, but you can try to fix the browser.

CSS3 PIE ("Progressive Internet Explorer") is meant to bring some of the spiffy CSS3 features to Internet Explorer. Want to see how it works? There's a full list of demos and plenty of documentation for getting started. Naturally, the project is on GitHub, and it's available under the GPLv2 and Apache 2 licenses.

PIE is not quite 1.0, but it's getting very close. Jason Johnston announced the fifth beta of 1.0 in September, which added IE9 support and fixed a number of minor issues in IE6 through IE8.

Bootstrap

Twitter released its Bootstrap toolkit for rapid development of Web applications in August, and it's remained one of the trending repos on GitHub ever since.

Bootstrap is pretty simple, it's just CSS that provides a standard set of solutions for things developers need for Web sites and Web apps. Developers can use Bootstrap for prototyping, or organizations can standardize on Bootstrap (as Twitter has) to provide a uniform design across a set of sites/applications.

Bootstrap is easy to use, just drop in the pre-compiled CSS into your project, or use LESS to compile a modified version.

LESS

Speaking of LESS, here's a little more on it. Ahem, sorry about that. Anyway, LESS is a dynamic stylesheet language that extends CSS to be much more expressive and easy to use.

Standard CSS doesn't support variables, functions, operators, and so on. LESS gives you the ability to do things that CSS ought to let you do. For example, LESS lets you define a color once and then use it through your stylesheet with a single variable (like @color instead of #4D6F92). The advantage, of course, is you make changes much more quickly and efficiently.

But LESS also provides the ability to define and re-use classes easily, and even use operators for proportional elements of your page with operators. If you want to check out LESS, the site has plenty of examples and source is available on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 License.

Chrome Developer Tools

Firefox's demise is has been greatly exaggerated, but it's probably no exaggeration to say that Chrome has been gobbling market share because Web developers love Google Chrome. (Or at least they hate Google Chrome less than the other Web browsers.) One of the clear reasons developers dig Chrome is the Chrome Developer Tools.

Chrome's Developer Tools are based on WebKit's Web Inspector but include a number of enhancements. The developer tools in Chrome are just a click or keystroke away, and give you the ability to do everything from edit HTML to view breakpoints in your script, perform remote debugging, and much more. The devtools also have an experimental API for those who'd like to extend the developer tools even farther.

Next page: The rest of the best Web developer tools of 2011

Andi Smith has a fantastic post on 25 secrets of the browser development tools you should look over if you spend any time at all with Chrome's developer tools, or any of the browser development tools. This post from Paul Irish is also worth checking out, and the video from Google I/O 2011: Chrome Dev Tools Reloaded.

You might also want to check out this cheat sheet from Boris Smus.

SourceKit and Ace: Top-Notch Browser-Based IDEs

Which text editor is the best for Web developers? (Or anybody editing a lot of text, for that matter.) I'd argue for Vim, hands down.

But what if you're looking for a browser-based IDE for development? Well, when we surveyed ReadWriteHack readers, they voted for Ace and Ace-based SourceKit. Ace is a standalone editor, formerly known as "Bespin" and "Skywriter." SourceKit takes Ace and turns it into a Chrome extension that taps into your Dropbox account.

Though Ace is more flexible, in that it will emulate keybindings for several popular editors (including vi), I like having SourceKit right at my fingertips in Chrome. Plus, the Dropbox connectivity is handy as well, though I do wish it was possible to limit SourceKit to one directory under my Dropbox directory. For one thing, I'd prefer not to give any application more access than strictly necessary. For another, I store a lot of stuff in Dropbox that I won't be editing and don't want to have to sort through.

This is a rapidly growing area, though, so I'd be very curious to hear what IDE or editor ReadWriteHack readers prefer.

PhoneGap

Want to write HTML5 applications, but provide similar features to native applications on mobile devices? PhoneGap seems to be far and away the most popular solution.

PhoneGap lets developers build an app once, then deploy to multiple platforms. PhoneGap supports iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and others. This includes webOS, but I'm not sure how much demand there's going to be for that platform in 2012.

Now we're not just talking about a mobile site that displays nice on your mobile device. PhoneGap actually provides access to hardware and native features on your phone, like the camera, accelerometer, network, geolocation, contacts and notifications. If you're targeting iOS and Android, you're not far behind native applications.

The company behind PhoneGap, Nitobi, was acquired by Adobe earlier this year. But that should be no cause for alarm. PhoneGap has been contributed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and is currently in the Apache Incubator. If you haven't looked at PhoneGap yet, check out the Getting Started Guide and the video tutorial.

Popcorn and Popcorn.js

New, but noteworthy, there's Popcorn.js. Part of the Mozilla Popcorn project, it's a JavaScript library that gives you time-based, interactive media via the Web.

It's not just a way to show video without Flash, Popcorn.js actually lets you create timeline-based Web presentations. This includes HTML5 audio and video, but also rich content presentations that make use of audio, video and other Web elements.

Popcorn.js promises to integrate content from Web services like Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Google Maps. Early demos show things like integrating time-based overlays into videos, with links to content. So, for example, you could develop a video presentation that has links to more information at certain times in the video.

Right now, it's in early development and watching some of the demos in Firefox and Chrome is laggy at best. Expect it to be a while before the Web explodes with Popcorn presentations – but the future of Web media looks good.

The Future? Waterbear

No I don't think anybody is going to be putting this into production, but Waterbear is worth looking at because it's a good entry to programming for kids. The idea is that kids can start with a system of "draggable, snappable blocks" built with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.

Developer Dethe Elza says that it's in pre-alpha and in "constant flux" right now, but here's hoping the project continues to move forward and turns into a popular system to start kids on programming. It's free software (under the Apache License 2.0) and anybody can head over to GitHub and dig in.

Your Picks?

Of course, this is a highly subjective list based on my observations from the last year. I'd love to hear from Web developers about the tools that you find most productive, exciting, useful, etc. Feel free to share your favorites in the comments, and if you see something trending that needs writing about in 2012 drop me a note.

In 2008, Mozilla entered into a three-year partnership with Google. In exchange for remaining the default search engine on Firefox, Google hands over about 84% of Firefox's total revenue. Well, it's 2011 now and, as ZDNet's Ed Bott points out, the status of that partnership is unclear.

Not only does the search giant have its own hugely popular Web browser, but it now has the Android mobile operating system, which is also growing fast. The value once inherent in being the default search engine in Firefox has declined as Google's tentacles have extended into the browser and mobile spaces and Firefox's growth has slowed. Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as Firefox needs Google.

The Mobile Revolution Isn't Helping Firefox

Making matters worse is the explosive success of Apple's mobile devices. Naturally, the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad come with Safari as the default browser and any third party iOS browser has to be built on WebKit, rather than the Gecko engine Firefox uses. The only presence Firefox has on the iPhone and other iOS devices is an app that ports one's bookmarks and other browser data to the device.

At the moment, Firefox's mobile focus is on Fennec, a browser that's available on Android and as an alpha on Windows Phone 7. The rapid growth of smartphones and tablets over the last few years, which is only just getting underway, have not been much of a boon for Firefox.

Now the majority of its revenue is in jeopardy, potentially putting its position on the desktop browser market at risk. Still, Google isn't the only search engine. If they pull out of the partnership, that leaves an attractive opening for Microsoft, who is always looking for ways to challenge Google with Bing. Users of Microsoft's browser already have the option to download a version of Firefox with Bing as its default search engine.

What do you think? Is Firefox screwed or will the browser find new ways to turn things around? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Chrome now has 25.69% of the global browser marketshare, just a slight notch above Firefox, which holds on at 25.23%. In September, it was predicted that Chrome was on track to bump Firefox from the #2 slot by about this time, and sure enough that projection has come true. Granted, that prediction was also based on StatCounter numbers, and this data often looks different depending on who is doing the reporting.

It's worth noting that this latest data comes from only one source, and that these kinds of statistics can offer differ from source to source. For example, Net Applications still puts Chrome behind Firefox and Internet Explorer. Chrome is still growing fast in that data set, but at 17.62% it's several percentage points lower than what StatCounter is reporting.

Still leading the pack, of course, is Microsoft's Internet Explorer. We've come a long way since the days when IE duked it out with Netscape Navigator, but IE remains entrenched on many people's machines, often because it's the default on Windows. This isn't as cringe-worthy as it once was for Web developers, since Microsoft has put a renewed focus on Web standards support. Internet Explorer 9, the latest version, is now the most-used browser on the Windows 7 operating system, according to the company. That said, plenty of machines are still running Windows XP and even Internet Explorer 6 refuses to die off completely.

Internet Explorer still has a hefty lead over Chrome, but if the growth of Google's young browser is any indication, it could provide a formidable challenge to IE in due time.

Meanwhile, in the mobile browser market, Apple's Safari has risen over 12 percentage points to have a 62% share of that market, according to leading Internet statistics provider Net Applications. However, Apple will have to continue to look over its shoulder at Android, which has also gained over 2011. Let's look more closely at how the desktop and mobile browser markets changed over 2011.

The latest data from Net Applications still shows Microsoft's Internet Explorer at over 50% market share on desktops (52.63%). Chrome (17.62%) is less than 5 percentage points below Firefox (22.52%), which hangs onto second spot for now. Safari has 5.43% and Opera 1.56%.

The trends data is more telling. Since December 2010, only Chrome and Safari have increased their market share. IE, Firefox and Opera all declined. Here are the gains and losses:

• IE: -6.63%
• Firefox: -1.17%
• Chrome: +7.26%
• Safari: +1.41%
• Opera: -0.71%

Source: Net Applications

Our own browser statistics for ReadWriteWeb show an even bigger swing towards Chrome, which is understandable, as we have a much more tech-savvy audience compared to the data from Net Applications. Chrome became the number 1 browser among RWW readers during 2011. Last month it was about 36%, up 12% from last November. Firefox is our number 2 browser at about 29%, down nearly 4% over the year.

Among our own writers, most now use Chrome as their primary desktop browser. Very few use Firefox.

Of course in an increasingly multi-device world, mobile browser share is very important too. On that front, according to Net Applications, Safari has risen 12.86% to now have 62.03% of the mobile browser share. The next best is Android browser at 18.60%. So Safari on mobile is now almost the equivalent of IE on desktop.

The big losers over 2011 in the mobile browser market have been Opera Mini (-13.4%), Symbian (-4.94%) and Blackberry (-0.87%, but it only has 2.03% share overall). Opera, despite its constant innovation, is really struggling to keep hold of users on both its favored mobile platform and on the desktop.

Source: Net Applications

Google & Apple Have The Momentum Heading Into 2012

In Net Application's statistics, Firefox is holding grimly on in the desktop browser market. But Chrome has the momentum and, as Jon Mitchell pointed out, it has done much of the innovating in this market over 2011. ReadWriteWeb's own statistics have Chrome as a clear number 1, which is typically a good indicator of where the mainstream is heading. All of this suggests that Chrome will overtake Firefox as the number 2 browser very soon. Then Google is set to make a run at dethroning Microsoft from number 1, but that's still at least a couple of years away.

On the mobile browser side, Apple is becoming increasingly dominant. However the rapid growth of the Android platform will keep them on their toes, so it's unlikely that Apple will enjoy the monopoly that Microsoft had for over a decade in the desktop market.

Let us know in the comments what browsers you use on both desktop and mobile. Did you switch browsers during 2011? If so, tell us why.

Whether they explicitly ask you to do it or not, chances are your parents' Web browser could use an upgrade. The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal put out a humorous call to action asking that you do just that, with or without the consent of your parents. Lifehacker goes so far as to show how to trick them into thinking nothing's changed.

So, this Friday is Update Your Parents' Browser Day. As Madrigal points out, the more up-to-date everyone's Web browsers are, the easier life will be for people who design and code websites for a living. Sure, a few hundred people upgrading their parents' browser on Friday isn't going to put a noticeable dent in the current browser marketshare break-down. Yet if enough people got into the habit of performing this task, we could perhaps see older browsers phased out a little more quickly over time.

It goes without saying that the browser in most dire need of being phased out is Internet Explorer 6, the decade-old, hard-to-kill browser that now even Microsoft wishes wants to get rid of. If somebody in your family is still running IE6, do the world a favor and upgrade them to a newer version of IE or, if you can get away with it, install Chrome or Firefox.

It'll Be Faster, Mom

If your folks (or other relatives guilty of having outdated browsers) are hesitant, one way you can sell them is with a promise of increased browsing speed. Everybody seems to think their computer runs slower than it should. Chrome has an especially solid reputation for speed among the major browsers, so it's a good candidate to install. It has a different UI from IE and Firefox, but it's pretty intuitive and shouldn't be hard for newcomers to get used to.

Improve Security (and Reduce Those Year-Round IT Phone Calls)

One of the most compelling reasons for keeping any software up-to-date is of course security. This is especially true of browsers. If family members are running anything other than the latest stable release of a browser, update it. Again, if they'll let you, switch them to a browser with a better track record for security, such as Chrome. Just remember to carry over their bookmarks and browser settings.

The more you can keep malware and security threats at bay, the lighter your load will likely be the next time you come around and are asked to play Family IT Director.

What will the Internet look like in 5 or 10 years? Will it still be a series of linked pages that users browse through, one at a time? Google may be betting that it will be something very different, if the company's latest acquisition is any indication. Apture, the service you can see in action if you highlight any word on this ReadWriteWeb, has been acquired by Google, the two companies announced this morning. An addition to offering media-rich contextual search pop-ups on the pages of publishers who have installed the service, Apture also offers a browser plug-in that adds the same functionality to any page on the web. Much of that same functionality will be baked into Google's browser Chrome very soon.

Apture Highlights Extension Welcome Video from Apture Inc on Vimeo.

I love Apture very much - I want Apture for my iPad, I want it for my phone, I want it to shoot out the end of my finger when I see words printed offline. Unfortunately, the Apture app is going to be shut down by Google in 45 days.

The very good news? The same type of functionality is going to be baked into Google Chrome in the near future. Look out, other browsers, Chrome and its users are about to get a whole lot smarter.

Google emphasized that the literal product itself is not going to be placed directly into Chrome, but said that Apture was being shut down so the team could focus on building "more things like it" as a part of Chrome.

Apture says its scripts get served up on 1 billion pages every month right now. "I'm going to miss it [the product] myself, too Marshall," CEO Harris consoled me today, "but hopefully this kind of thing will be showing up all over the place."

The Next Layer of Search

Will people use functionality like this as part of their browser? Will people think to "highlight to Google?" When I first wrote about Apture's browser plug-in, I said it was like Augmented Reality for the Web. But I wondered if people would use it regularly. "If I told you the world was your oyster, that layers of multimedia explanation and context lay behind every word on the web and are now accessible with a simple flick of the wrist - could you develop a new habit of lifting the covers to look at it?"

Other companies that track copy-and-paste activity say that highlighting things on a page so they can be shared by email is still far, far more common than clicking buttons to links via Twitter or Facebook. I imagine that once those copy-and-pasters learn they can highlight to Google, it could really change the search experience.

Harris:

"I can't comment too much about Google's future plans but what I'm excited about is: in 10 years are we still going to be browsing the web we do today? Is search still going to be 10 blue links? Are we going to still click on links to visit another page? I think those things are going to change and Apture represents just one part of those changes. Infinite background information and videos can compliment your understanding of anything you're looking at.

"When you think about Google's mission of making the world's information organized and accessible, you can't think about that without thinking about the browser. Google.com is v 1.0 of that, and Chrome's performance and speed has done amazingly well, but the browser is still a flat web browser. I think what you're going to see is more moving beyond the traditional metaphors of a traditional web browser. What's beyond everything we've seen with a browser so far? I hope it's beyond the single page and browsing metaphor that started in 1995. I think we'll see a lot more from the browser itself."

Apture now changes from an option add-on to, in spirit at least if the same software itself does not literally live on, a new way to Google for things. Not on Google.com, not in the search bar, not by voice, not by mobile - but directly from the fabric of the web. That's a big responsibility for a little four year-old company that raised just over $4 million in venture capital.

A Win for Human Intelligence

It's also a hopeful turn of events for those who read with curiosity. I love finding peoples' names online, highlighting them and having their Twitter handles appear. I love highlighting the names of companies and instantly watching product demos in an inline YouTube player. The service's Wikipedia integration means you can read words on the web not just with your own understanding, but with the world's largest, most refined, collective encyclopedia always at your fingertips.

When I asked about integration of this kind of functionality into the developer-facing parts of Chrome, Harris said he thought that was a good idea but couldn't comment.

"When you have native access to search in a browser," he said, "I'm really excited to think about other things Google that could do to enhance other kinds of products."

I am too.

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.