Chromium Blog
News and developments from the open source browser project
Faster web pages thanks to better compression
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Today,
we released
the Zopfli Compression Algorithm, a C library that compresses existing web content
3–8% more densely
.
Zopfli
is compatible with the normal decompression mechanisms already present in web browsers and uses a much slower but more exhaustive compression algorithm than, for example, the
zlib
library. This can result in smaller data sizes and faster web pages.
To learn more about Zopfli, visit
our site
.
Posted by Lode Vandevenne, Software Engineer
On the track with Super Sync Sports
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Earlier
today
we launched
Super Sync Sports
, a Chrome Experiment. It’s an interactive web game that enables up to four friends to compete in running, swimming and cycling events on a shared computer screen, using their smartphones or tablets as game controllers.
Super Sync Sports was built with the latest browser technologies:
Touch APIs
to recognise gestures made on your smartphone and tablet.
WebSockets
are used to deliver immediate real-time playback across all the players in your group and to update the main game screen as you play.
Finally,
CSS3
,
SVG
and
Canvas
provide rich visuals and an immersive experience.
In the next few weeks, we’ll be publishing an article on HTML5 Rocks with more information on how we built this experience. You can follow
+Google Chrome Developers
to learn when the article will be live.
In the meantime, enjoy competing with your friends at
chrome.com/supersyncsports
and be sure to open Chrome’s
developer tools
to see what happens under the track!
Posted by Paul Kinlan, Developer Advocate
Chrome 26 Beta: Template Element & Unprefixed CSS Transitions
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Today’s Chrome Beta channel release
includes a slew of awesome new features to help you make your web apps more powerful and beautiful. Unless otherwise noted, all updates apply to Chrome for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.
<template>
Element
The
<template>
element
is part of
Web Components
, a set of cutting edge standards that will make it possible to build reusable widgets for the web. The element allows you to store HTML fragments that you intend to use for any reason at any time during the lifetime of your page, but that aren’t ready or shouldn’t be used during page load. Here’s an illustrative code snippet from the
HTML5 Rocks article
:
Unprefixed CSS Transitions &
calc()
CSS Transitions
allow CSS property changes to occur smoothly rather than abruptly, as in
this demo
. The
calc()
function allows you to use basic mathematical expressions anywhere a length or number is required by a CSS property. Here’s some example code:
Both the prefixed and unprefixed versions of these features will work in today’s Beta, but you should switch to the unprefixed versions after Chrome 26 reaches the
Stable channel
as we are ending official support for the prefixed versions.
activeTab
Extensions API
Chrome extensions
let you add custom functionality to desktop versions of the browser. Starting in Chrome 26, the
activeTab
API
allows your extension to interact with the currently active tab when the user invokes your extension - for example by clicking its browser action or hitting a keyboard shortcut. Since the
activeTab
API requires a user action to activate, it does not cause an install-time permissions warning.
Other new web platform features
The web platform evolves rapidly. In this release, we’ve added the following:
HTML
<main>
element can be used to represent the main content of the
<body>
of a document or application.
CSS pseudo elements (like
::before
and
::after
) can
now
be animated and transitioned.
Encrypted Media Extensions
allow you to play protected audio and video content on the web. See them in action in
this WebM demo
, and note that they’re not yet available on Android.
Enable the Experimental JavaScript flag in
chrome://flags
to try
Object.observe()
. It lets you add a listener to any JavaScript object that gets called whenever that object or its properties change, as in
this simple demo
.
Features removed
MathML has been
disabled
in order to resolve security and stability issues. In Chrome for Android, we’ve
removed
support for the
datetime <input>
type because the spec is still under development. Please use the
datetime-local
type instead.
Stay in the loop
Visit
chromestatus.com
for a complete overview of Chrome’s developer features, and circle
+Google Chrome Developers
for more frequent updates. Get coding!
Posted by Rafael Weinstein, Software Engineer and
<template>
Templar
Chrome app launcher developer preview
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Today, on the
Chrome dev channel for Windows
, you can try the Chrome app launcher--a dedicated home for your apps which makes them easy to open outside the browser. This is the same experience as the app launcher on Chromebooks, but for other platforms. It’s available on Windows now, and will be coming to Mac OS X and Linux soon.
You’ll need to install a
Chrome packaged app
, such as IRC client
CIRC
or
Text Drive
, in order to try out the Chrome app launcher. Chrome packaged apps deliver a native-like experience across multiple platforms with the security properties of a web page. Just like web apps, packaged apps are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. But packaged apps launch outside the browser, work offline by default, and have access to
powerful APIs
not available to web apps.
You’ll get the app launcher as an icon on your Windows taskbar the first time you install a packaged app. Chrome packaged apps are not yet searchable on the Chrome Web Store - but you can
build
your own packaged app,
upload
it to the Chrome Web Store and access it via its direct link.
Try out the app launcher and let us know what you think. If you have any questions or comments, you can use
Stack Overflow
or
chromium-apps
. File your bugs and feature requests
here
.
Posted by Sriram Saroop, Product Manager
Using WebP to Improve Speed
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Since speed is critical for a good experience when using the web, at Google we’re always exploring ways to make the web faster. As it turns out, one of the biggest bang-for-the-buck ways to do that is by replacing JPEG and PNG images with
WebP
. WebP offers significantly better compression than these legacy formats (around
35% better
in most cases), and when you consider that
over 60%
of typical page sizes are images, the benefits can be substantial. WebP translates directly into less bandwidth consumption, decreased latency, faster page loads, better battery consumption on mobile, and overall happier users.
Case in point: the
Chrome Web Store
uses many large promotional images and tiles on its home page, making it a very heavyweight page. The team was eager to find ways to improve its speed, without sacrificing the user experience or giving up image quality. WebP to the rescue!
By converting PNGs and JPEGs to WebP, the Chrome Web Store was able to reduce image sizes by about 30% on average (here’s one sample image in
WebP
at 8.3kB and
JPEG
at 32kB). Given the number of requests Chrome Web Store serves, this adds up to
several terabytes
of savings every day.
For users, the rubber meets the road when it comes to how fast the page loads though. On this score, with WebP we were able to reduce average home page load time by nearly one-third — a huge benefit for our users.
To implement WebP, the team first added transcoding support to the image request pipeline; then at runtime the site checks whether the client browser supports WebP and requests the WebP version for each image when it does. The effort to implement it turned out to be not much work for a lot of benefit.
To find out more about how you can make your site faster, visit our
Make the Web Faster
site and dive into
WebP
.
Posted by Stephen Konig, Product Manager
Updates to manifest V1 Chrome Web Store items to be blocked in March
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Last year, Chrome introduced
manifest V2
to Apps and Extension developers, which brings a variety of security and API improvements such as a default
Content Security Policy
. As of Chrome 18, manifest V1 was officially deprecated. At the time, we published our
manifest version support schedule
to give developers transparency and insight into our plans for migrating to the new version.
Today, we’re announcing a slight update to that schedule, to let developers know that they have until Monday, March 4, 2013 to make updates to their existing manifest V1-based items. After that date, the
Chrome Web Store
will
block all updates
to products based on manifest V1 unless the update includes switching it to manifest V2.
Developers are strongly encouraged to migrate their items to manifest V2 now. Follow the
migration tutorial
, and you can always contact us on the
chromium-apps forum
and
our G+ page
with any questions you may have.
Posted by Joe Marini, Developer Advocate
Introducing “Find Your Way to Oz”, a new Chrome Experiment
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Earlier today we unveiled
Find Your Way To Oz,
a new Chrome Experiment inspired by the upcoming feature film
Oz The Great and Powerful
. Developed by
UNIT9
, this experiment brings together Disney’s unique storytelling tradition and the power of the web platform, allowing users to interact with the web in a completely new way.
The desktop version of “Find Your Way To Oz” uses many of the open web’s more advanced features:
Immersive Graphics: The experiment uses
WebGL
for the main 3D environment,
CSS3
features such as CSS Transitions for various visual embellishments, and GLSL shaders for the tornado’s ominous look and feel.
Rich Audio: As the user explores the experiment, the 3D sound dynamically adapts thanks to the
Web Audio API
. The same API powers the experiment’s music composing section.
Camera-based interactions: Through WebRTC’s
getUserMedia
API
, users can become circus characters or record their own mini-movies.
The experiment’s mobile web version also uses cutting-edge web technologies. These include graphics features such as accelerated
3D transforms
and
sprite sheets
as well as mobile hardware features like camera, multi-touch, gyroscope and accelerometer. Together they create an experience that can normally only be found in native apps.
To learn more about how this experiment was built, read our
technical case study
and join us for a Google Developers Live event on February 11th at 11 a.m. GMT where we’ll be talking to the team behind the project. Alternatively, use Chrome’s
developer tools
to see how the experiment works on your own, perhaps finding in the process your own path to the yellow brick road.
Posted by Max Heinritz, Product Magician (Manager)
Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling!
Monday, February 4, 2013
For the first time, Chrome and Firefox can “talk” to each other via
WebRTC
. WebRTC is a new set of technologies that brings clear crisp voice, sharp high-definition (HD) video and low-delay communication to the web browser.
From the very beginning, this joint WebRTC effort was embraced by the open web community, including engineers from the Chrome and Firefox teams. The common goal was to help developers offer rich, secure communications, integrated directly into their web applications.
In order to succeed, a web-based communications platform needs to work across browsers. Thanks to the work and participation of the
W3C
and
IETF
communities in developing the platform, Chrome and Firefox can now communicate by using standard technologies such as the
Opus
and
VP8
codecs for audio and video,
DTLS
-
SRTP
for encryption, and
ICE
for networking.
To try this yourself, you’ll need desktop
Chrome 25 Beta
and
Firefox Nightly for Desktop
. In Firefox, you'll need to go to
about:config
and set the
media.peerconnection.enabled
pref to "
true
”. Then head over to the
WebRTC demo site
and start calling.
For developers looking to include this functionality in their own apps, there are a few places you can go to get more information. You can look at the
source code
of the AppRTC demo, a
library
that makes writing cross-browser WebRTC apps a snap, and a
document
detailing some of the minor differences between browsers.
You can read more from Mozilla’s hacks blog
here
and view our first “Official” call at the video below:
Posted by Maire Reavy, Firefox Media Product Lead and Serge Lachapelle, Chrome Product Manager
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