Chromium Blog
News and developments from the open source browser project
V8 Benchmark Suite extended with physics simulation
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Today we are releasing version 7 of the
V8 Benchmark Suite
. This new version adds
Oliver Hunt’s
2D
Navier-Stokes
fluid dynamic simulation, which stresses intense double array computations. These complex double array computations are today common in games, graphic and scientific applications.
The new test shows the recent improvements V8 has made in handling advanced physics computations: the current
Chrome 18
(today in beta) delivers a 5% score improvement compared to the current Chrome 17.
Chrome 19
(today in canary), where the full set of improvements is being released, delivers a whopping 25% score improvement compared to Chrome 17.
With these additions, the V8 Benchmark Suite is now a more comprehensive collection of eight tests, including OS kernel simulation, crypto and string operations, memory management stress-tests, and as of today, double array computations.
We plan to keep updating the suite by adding more tests. These updates are a reflection of Chrome’s commitment to keep pushing the boundaries of speed, optimizing the engine for today’s more demanding web apps.
Posted by Stefano Cazzulani, Product Manager
Meet the Web Platform Again for the First Time
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
A few weeks ago one of my developer friends was gushing about the capabilities of his favorite native platform. After every point I felt obliged to point out that the web platform either already had or was actively developing precisely the same capabilities—and then some. He was incredulous. "Prove it," he said.
So I pulled together a few of my favorite examples from the cutting edge of the web platform and recorded three screencasts to help my friend—and others—meet the web platform again for the first time.
The first video, Building on Foundations, goes over how the web platform has been fixing various historical shortcomings and building upon its core strengths, like complicated graphical effects, composability, and advanced text layout.
The next video, Learning from Other Platforms, reviews how the web platform offers new capabilities inspired by successes on other platforms with things like push notifications, payment APIs, and web intents.
The last video, On the Cutting Edge, demonstrates some of the new tricks the web platform is learning, like webcam access, powerful audio APIs, and complicated 3D graphics.
If you're interested in learning more about the technology behind any of the demos, check out the Meet the Web Platform
companion guide
.
I hope these videos capture your imagination and begin to show what is possible on the web platform. The web platform is evolving at an enormous pace, and I just can't wait to see where it goes next!
Posted by Alex Komoroske, Product Manager
Game On
Monday, March 5, 2012
Hundreds of millions play games on the web everyday - including most of us on the Chrome team. Between building new virtual cities and slaying dragons, we’re also working on making the web a better platform for game developers. With
GDC
about to start, we wanted to give you a quick update on these efforts.
First, we’re collaborating with all browser vendors to give you access to exciting new HTML5 APIs such as
Gamepad
,
Mouse Lock
and
Fullscreen
. These can help you create more immersive experiences for your users.
Second,
Native Client
continues to gain momentum. Today, the
BlitzTech Gaming engine
and the
Havok Physics Engine
announced support for Native Client, enriching an
ecosystem
that includes Unity, Moai, Bullet and other leading middleware providers. Already many game developers have been using NaCl to bring their games to Chrome’s hundreds of millions of users including brand new titles from
Ubisoft
,
Carbon Games
,
Spacetime Studios
,
FuzzyCube Software
,
Klei Entertainment
and
Fire Hose Games
.
Third, we’re working closely with other teams at Google to improve and simplify distribution and monetization for game developers. All games in the
Chrome Web Store
now have access to an improved
In-App Payments solution
that
includes
support for more currencies and an optimized payment flow. This includes all Google+ games that will soon be listed in the store.
To learn more on how you can also benefit from the emergence of the browser as a game platform, visit us at
developers.google.com/games
. And if you are attending GDC this week, come and say hi.
Posted by Christian Stefansen, Product Manager
More secure extensions, by default
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Security is one of our core values, alongside speed, stability and simplicity. From day one, we’ve designed Chrome’s extension system
with security in mind
. Since we launched the extension system, the state of the art in web security has advanced with technologies like
Content-Security-Policy
(CSP). Extension developers have been able to
opt into these features
, and now we’re enabling these security features by default.
Unfortunately, securing extensions with CSP by default is incompatible with the legacy extension system. We’re passionate about extension compatibility, so we’re going to make this change gradually to minimize pain for users and developers.
Users can continue to install extensions that are available in the store regardless of whether they are secured with CSP or not. This means they will not lose any of the functionality they've added to Chrome.
Developers will be able to choose when to enable the new behavior. To ease the transition, we've introduced a new manifest version attribute in the extension manifest in Chrome 18 (currently in beta). When a developer updates his or her extension to use
manifest_version
2, Chrome will enforce the following CSP policy by default:
script-src 'self'; object-src 'self'
This policy imposes the following restrictions on extensions:
Extensions can no longer use inline scripts, such as
<script> ... </script>
. Instead, extensions must use out-of-line scripts loaded from within their package, such as
<script src="foo.js"></script>
.
Extensions can no longer use
eval()
. Note: If you’re using eval to parse JSON today, we suggest using
JSON.parse
instead.
Extensions can load plug-ins, such as SWF files, only from within their package or from a whitelist of HTTPS hosts.
A
recent study
from researchers at UC Berkeley suggested that these restrictions, taken together, would substantially
improve the security
of the extension system:
These defenses are extremely effective: adopting one of the recommended CSPs would prevent 96% (49 out of 51) of the core extension vulnerabilities we found.
For most extensions, updating them to
manifest_version
2 will require the developer to move inline scripts out-of-line and to move scripts loaded from the network into the extension package. Developers are not required to update their extensions to
manifest_version
2 immediately, but, over time, more of the extension ecosystem will encourage developers to update their extensions. For example, at some point, we’ll likely start requiring new extensions uploaded to the web store to use
manifest_version
2. You can find
a complete list
of changes and
more details
about CSP in the
extension documentation
.
We expect these changes will make the security of Chrome’s extension system even better. If you have any feedback, please feel encouraged to email the extension developers
mailing list
.
Posted by Adam Barth, Chrome Security Engineer
Pwnium: rewards for exploits
Monday, February 27, 2012
This year at the CanSecWest security conference, we will
once again
sponsor rewards for Google Chrome exploits. This complements and extends our
Chromium Security Rewards program
by recognizing that developing a fully functional exploit is significantly more work than finding and reporting a potential security bug.
The aim of our sponsorship is simple: we have a big learning opportunity when we receive full end-to-end exploits. Not only can we fix the bugs, but by studying the vulnerability and exploit techniques we can enhance our mitigations, automated testing, and sandboxing. This enables us to better protect our users.
While we’re proud of Chrome’s leading track record in past competitions, the fact is that not receiving exploits means that it’s harder to learn and improve. To maximize our chances of receiving exploits this year, we’ve upped the ante. We will directly sponsor up to $1 million worth of rewards in the following categories:
$60,000 - “Full Chrome exploit”: Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence using only bugs in Chrome itself.
$40,000 - “Partial Chrome exploit”: Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence using at least one bug in Chrome itself, plus other bugs. For example, a WebKit bug combined with a Windows sandbox bug.
$20,000 - “Consolation reward, Flash / Windows / other”: Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence that does not use bugs in Chrome. For example, bugs in one or more of Flash, Windows or a driver. These exploits are not specific to Chrome and will be a threat to users of any web browser. Although not specifically Chrome’s issue, we’ve decided to offer consolation prizes because these findings still help us toward our mission of making the entire web safer.
All winners will also receive a Chromebook.
We will issue multiple rewards per category, up to the $1 million limit, on a first-come-first served basis. There is no splitting of winnings or “winner takes all.” We require each set of exploit bugs to be reliable, fully functional end to end, disjoint, of critical impact, present in the latest versions and genuinely “0-day,” i.e. not known to us or previously shared with third parties. Contestant’s exploits must be submitted to and judged by Google before being submitted anywhere else.
Originally, our plan was to sponsor as part of this year’s Pwn2Own competition. Unfortunately, we decided to withdraw our sponsorship when we discovered that contestants are permitted to enter Pwn2Own without having to reveal full exploits (or even all of the bugs used!) to vendors. Full exploits have been handed over in previous years, but it’s an explicit non-requirement in this year’s contest, and that’s worrisome. We will therefore be running this alternative Chrome-specific reward program. It is designed to be attractive -- not least because it stays aligned with user safety by requiring the full exploit to be submitted to us. We guarantee to send non-Chrome bugs to the appropriate vendor immediately.
Drop by our table at
CanSecWest
to participate and check the latest news.
Posted by Chris Evans and Justin Schuh, Google Chrome Security Team
Tech preview of Chromium with Dart engine now available
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Cross posted to the
Google Code Blog
An attractive feature of Web programming is a rapid development cycle. Reloading the application after the source code has changed takes a fraction of a second. We want to offer you that same experience when using
Dart
, and today we’re making Mac and Linux binaries available that integrate the
Dart VM into Chromium
.
This technology preview allows you to run your Dart programs directly on the Dart VM in Chromium and avoid a separate compilation step. Over time, these programs will take advantage of the VM’s faster performance and lower startup latency.
Dart has been designed from the start to work with the entire modern web, and we’re simultaneously continuing to improve our fast Dart-to-JavaScript compiler. Both the Dart VM and modern JavaScript engines are first-class targets for Dart.
This release of Chromium with Dart VM integration is a technology preview, and should not be used for day-to-day browsing. After more testing and developer feedback, we plan to eventually include the Dart VM in Chrome.
Today’s release of the
Chromium + Dart VM
integration is another step forward for the open source "batteries included" Dart platform. Our goal is to help you build complex, high performance apps for the modern web, and we encourage you to
try Dart
and
let us know
what you think.
Posted by Anton Muhin, Vijay Menon, and Pavel Podivilov, Software Engineers
Changes in Chrome Web Store categories system
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
When we
launched the Chrome Web Store
a year ago, our app taxonomy system reflected the apps that were available in the store at the time. However, since then, the store’s app inventory has grown and changed in composition. So, yesterday we made important changes in the Chrome Web Store’s app category system to allow more great apps of all kinds to stand out.
Until now, you could list your app into two categories. With the new category structure, we will show your app only in the primary category that you select for your app in the
developer dashboard
. We've found that secondary app categories contributed to a confusing experience for Chrome users and developers so from now on, we're going to start ignoring the secondary category.
We also updated the list of top level app categories and created multiple sub categories in each of them.
More specifically, given the growing use of Chrome and Chromebooks in large and small businesses, we created a new category called “
Business Tools
” that can help enterprise focused developers target these users. Also, “
Shopping
” has been reclassified as a subcategory, within the “
Lifestyle
” category.
The new structure of the store will improve discoverability for apps. For example, users searching for a photo album app can now easily drill down to the “Photos” subcategory level and track down the app they are looking for. At the same time, apps assigned to a subcategory show up in the category page as well giving them wider exposure; an app in "Photos" will appear on both the "Photos" page and the "Entertainment" page.
The categories will continue to evolve over time. To that effect, in the Developer Dashboard you will see a few more subcategory options than the ones that are live in the Chrome Web Store today. We plan to expose these subcategories to users once we confirm we have enough interesting apps in each one of them. In the meantime, items assigned to these subcategories will show up at a related subcategory. For example all items on “Online Documents & File Storage” will show up for now in “Office Tools”.
This transition required our team to take a stab at automatically assigning all apps to one of our new categories / subcategories. Please take a look at the developer dashboard and make sure the placement of your app accurately reflects your business goals and the experience you offer.
Learn more about these category changes on our
developer site
. If you have any questions about these changes, please don't hesitate to post to our
developer forum
.
Posted by Jia Tam, Software Engineer
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