ReadWriteWeb

In a blog post, Google software engineer James Hawkins revealed that the company is working on a system called Web Intents in which it will enable Chrome users to pipe data between different Web applications much the same way Android users can share data between apps. The idea is to create one API that various Web applications can all use to pass data back and forth without a need for each one to be designed to work with the other apps.

Securing the Internet is no easy task but Google researchers think they have taken a step closer this week with a program called SSL False Start that decreases the load time of SSL connections up to 30%.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a certification that encrypts data between an end-users' browser and the server. It is a headache to implement and increases connection latency and only a few of the major sites on the Web have instituted "always on" SSL/TLS protection on top of HTTP to create the more secure HTTPS. While SSL False Start is a good step in creating a safer Internet, it is not the cure for all SSL woes. But, it does look like a step in the right direction.

Something called the P2P API can be turned on through the about:flags menu in the latest builds of Chromium, the open source browser that serves as the basis for Google Chrome. The discovery was made by Daniel Cawrey at thechromesource. The description of the option reads: "Enables P2P Pepper API and P2P JavaScript API. The API is under development, and doesn't work yet."

Social web browser RockMelt launched this weekend to a huge press splash, 15 months after ReadWriteWeb first reported that it existed and was funded by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreesen. Reactions among early users have been mixed - and so is our review. I've been using it as my default browser all week.

I want RockMelt to work - I really like the idea. Right now it has too many performance issues, but if those can be resolved - it could be a good browser to use. I won't recommend that most readers use it yet, but I think I will continue to do so myself. Here's the best and worst, after 3 days of RockMelt.

Google just confirmed that Chrome will soon support GPU hardware acceleration. Developers can speed up the rendering of complex pages by offloading a lot of the processing to a computer's graphics card, which - after all - was specifically designed for these tasks. As browser developers continue to try to increase the responsiveness of their applications, hardware acceleration is the natural next place to look for performance gains. Microsoft is also working on hardware acceleration for the next version of its browser. The company plans to unveil the first complete build of Internet Explorer 9 next month. Mozilla, too, offers support for GPU acceleration in the latest beta version of Firefox 4 for Windows.

A recent build of Chromium, the open source Web browser which serves as the testing ground for Google Chrome, has been updated with a new feature: Google Chrome Labs. This internally accessed page is available by typing in about:labs in the browser's address bar. Currently, there are only two "labs" (that is, experimental features) available for testing - an option to use side tabs for Windows users and an option to see an expose-like tab overview for Mac users.

So how can you access this new Labs section, which is still off-limits to users of the standard Chrome browser? We've got the details in our latest "weekend project."

Rumors of Chrome OS tablets have been circulating the Internet, hinting that major manufacturers including HTC and Motorola will soon be launching iPad competitors featuring the long-anticipated, browser-based operating system from Google. While timelines for Chrome OS's arrival are still unconfirmed, the Chrome OS code is open source and available to anyone interested in toying around with it.

At this year's Google I/O developer conference, the Internet search giant made a surprising announcement: not only was the company releasing a Web-connected "cloud" operating system called "Chrome OS," it would also include an app store called the "Chrome Web Store" which would help users discover, purchase and install Web applications from a central location.

However, you don't have to wait until Chrome OS debuts to install Chrome Web apps - you can test a few of them now by using a Chrome developer build or Chromium, the open-source browser behind Google Chrome.

Within the next two weeks, Google will release a new development version of Google Chrome that will include the ability to sync bookmarks between different computers. As Tim Steele, a software engineer on the Chrome team explained in a message to the Chrome developer group, the synchronization will be managed through a Google account. Changes in one install will be reflected in another Chrome instance in real time thanks to the Chrome team's use of the Google Talk servers as the messaging backend for this service.

We're sure by now you've heard about the upcoming extensions that will soon arrive in Google's Chrome browser. Already we've seen a handful of these become available, including AdSweep, a PageRank checker, Cleeki, and, as of yesterday, a new bookmarking extension from Delicious. However, if you've been running the standard Chrome install (or even the public beta), new features like this are just out of reach.