Chrome/ium themes for the new look Light themes in Ubuntu 10.10

The light themes have updated and now your Chrome theme looks a tad off colour. Fix it thanks to these two plucky people!

Ambiance

Easily the more popular of the two Light themes, Ambiance has seen a very nice upgrade for Ubuntu 10.10 so the following Chrome/ium theme is a must for those lovers of desktop consistency. The theme is the work of a user called cybolic to whom we heartily thank!

Download

Radiance
The deft hands over at Spanish linux blog El Soft Libre have created an Chrome/ium theme matching the newly-restyled Ubuntu radiance theme found in Ubuntu 10.10.

Download

Continue reading

Chromium's restyled 'new tab' page is minimal win

With so many visually important Ubuntu updates landing today it was nice to find something else non-Ubuntu related amongst them.

Users of the Chromium Daily Builds may (or may not have depending on level of observation!) a new look 'new tab' page.

The evolution of the Chrome/ium interface is one I really love following - simply because changes often appear when you least expect it!

The new look is, visually at least, easier on the eye. I like being able to collapse any/all of the segments as and when I wish, tucking away the commanding colours of garish thumbnails.

Chromium Daily PPA (experimental & liable to crash)

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily/ppa
• sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

Continue reading

Finally - A Chrome theme for Elegant GNOME!

Chrome/ium fans using the Elegant GNOME theme/script pack we featured yesterday can rejoice! A very ace dude by the name of JurgenWagen has created an Elegant-matching Chrome/ium theme that is just the thing for those of use with OCD over how our desktops look.

“I saw your cry of desperation after finding out that the Elegant Gnome script didn't come with a Chrome theme, so I decided to make one. I hope it's good!”

Jurgen, it’s ace! Thanks!

Download over @ http://toopredictable.deviantart.com/art/Elegance-Theme-for-Chrome-ium-176672425

Continue reading

Chrome Webstore icon appears in Daily build

After updating the Chromium daily build today I found a shiny new icon sat in my new tab app’s bar - a link to the official Chrome webstore!

The Chrome webstore cometh!?!

Well, not just yet. The icon currently links back to the official Chrome extensions gallery, but it’s a footnote we can get dizzy over as we wait for the store, targeted to officially launch later this year.

Continue reading

Enable Chrome Web Apps in Chromium on Ubuntu

If you're chomping at the bit to try out some of Googles Web App features in Chrome/ium then read on!

Google announced that a new Chrome Web Store was being built earlier this year at their annual Google I/O conference.

Whilst the launch of the store itself is due later this year, progress on enabling support for Web Applications in the browser is apace.


Try it out
You can try out a handful of "web apps" (and i use the term loosely here) in the Chrome Dev channel or one of the Chromium daily builds. If you're running one of those, and want to see what the fuss is all about, create a new launcher with the following command or run it from a terminal: -

• chromium-browser --enable-apps

Or for Google Chrome Dev channel: -

• google-chrome --enable-apps

Get some WebApps
Whilst Google ship Chrome and Chromium with some example webapps these will be removed in a few short days. Thankfully Lee over at DownloadSquad has put these up for download on the site and created many, many others to boot - props!

Because of the need for WebApps to be installed from a local source at present you need to endure you do the following: -

1. Right-click and save on the web-app you wish to use
2. Once it has downloaded open it in Chrome/ium (by dragging it onto the window)
3. Install

Webapps can be now launched from the 'app bar' now floating on top of the 'new tab' page.

Web App? Fo real?

You'll notice a visual difference in 'Web app tabs' for they don't show the navigation bar by default (but this can be enabled by right clicking on the tab > show navigation bar). App tabs also show a fancy-pants .png icon instead of a traditional page title. 

As with normal tabs App Tabs can be pinned so they show on every launch. It might not be wise to pin GMail or Facebook unless you know your computer isn't likely to be used by anyone else.  

A wider selection of WebApps, including ones available to request advanced HTML5 permissions such as offline storage, will be available to install from Google's forthcoming WebApp store later this year. 

Continue reading

Chromium's unified menu comes to daily builds

Image | cmyrland

Chromium's new 'unified menu' is now enabled by default in the Chromium Daily build.


The 'single menu' approach to listing options and features is something a lot of browser are currently in the midst of migrating to: we've seen it in Opera during the 10.50 and 10.60 releases, Firefox 4 beta has a 'menu' button on top for Windows users and now Chrome is in on the action by ditching merging it's already minimal 2-button menu set-up into one.


Rather neatly the unified menu tries very hard NOT to shove things into submenu's as with Opera and Firefox, instead opting to place everything in reach with most configuration options contained in the Preferences menu.


The other notable difference is the morphing of cut/copy/paste into actual buttons rather than regular menu entries and combines the zoom options with full-screen, again into click-able buttons rather than pre-defined sub-menu options. 


Google Chrome Dev channel users who want to test the solo menu out can add the following flag to enable it: -


--new-wrench-menu

Continue reading

Chrome Dev Channel adds GNOME Keyring support for saving passwords

The Google Chrome dev channel (as well as the Chromium daily builds) recently gained preliminary support for storing user passwords in the native system keyring rather than, as currently, the built-in unencrypted password store.

Whilst the feature is switched off by default you can enable it easily using one of the following switches below, either by appending them to the the chrome command in a terminal session or by editing the application launcher itself.

• --password-store=gnome
• --password-store=kwallet
• --password-store=detect

Upon launching Chrome/ium using the switch, passwords will be saved natively, allowing for encryption, and existing passwords already saved in Chrome/ium will be migrated over.

It is worth bearing in mind that this feature is switched off for a reason and does requires the latest development version of Chrome/ium.

Continue reading

Get Safari’s new ‘reader’ feature in Chrome & Firefox

Apple pushed out Safari 5 earlier today. With it came a new feature called ‘Reader’ that, in the words of Apple themselves,: -

"…removes annoying ads and other visual distractions from online articles. So you get the whole story and nothing but the story. It works like this: As you browse the web, Safari detects if you're on a web page with an article. Click the Reader icon in the Smart Address Field, and the article appears instantly in one continuous, clutter-free view. You see every page of the article — whether two or twenty. “

Now that sounds good to me. Sadly the feature refused to work  when we tried Safari 5 out via Wine earlier today but the ‘that sounds good to me’ factor stayed with me; Just how could I get this functionality in Chrome or Firefox?

Easily it turns out. I literally spent about 3 minutes searching before I had the following extensions installed and running.

• Readability Redux for Chrome/ium
• Readability Extension for Firefox

Annoyingly the Chrome plug-in removes images too, which the Reader feature in Safari doesn’t but it remains a great way to read articles without any visual framing or distractions.

Continue reading

Google Chrome for Linux Becomes stable

Google Chrome for Linux has finally become ‘stable’.

The first pre-alpha release was made almost one year ago on June 4th and the development since then has been breakneck.

In an announcement on the official Chromium blog, Chrome engineers Evan Stade & Elliot Glaysher said:-

“With continued improvements in plugin support, extensions functionality, and desktop integration, as well as new features such as desktop notifications and bookmark sync, we believe this release of Google Chrome for Linux to be a solid, high-performance, fully-featured, all-purpose browser.

From the early porting days of layout test fixing, deep and hairy posix and raw X11 code, to designing a truly native UI and building a host of new and polished features, we’re thrilled to work with the larger community to deliver a fast, stable, secure, and sophisticated browser.”

Download

Users can download the first stable release of Google Chrome via the link below.

Continue reading

Just how popular is Chrome/ium on Linux? answer: Very

Google Chrome for Linux will be one year old on Friday 4th June. Crazy non?
To mark this relatively minor milestone I’ve decided to take a look at how Google Chrome’s growth on Linux has, well, grown in that time. I can only base my findings on my blog as a whole with some outside context provided by net statistic providers.

Google Chrome: Popularity in general

Chrome's current worldwide usage across all major operating systems is, as of April 2010, residing at a healthy 6.73%. This position makes it the third most popular browser behind Firefox & Internet Explorer.

But what about on Linux?

Google Chrome on Linux

Chromium – the open-source version of Google Chrome which implements the same feature set as Chrome, but reneges on the built-in updater and Google branding – was available several months before an official Google-endorsed version.

These early builds were very basic – at first lacking even tabs and the start-page!



The development, like Chrome itself, sped along at remarkable pace and the first pre-alpha release of Google Chrome proper was made available on the 4th June 2009.




Development on the official Chrome was, again, extremely rapid and official betas for Mac OS X and Linux were released on 8 December 2009, with the Linux feature set almost comparable to that of Chrome for Windows – lacking only bookmark sync.

Google Chrome usage on Linux

To judge how popular Google Chrome is on Linux I'm going to look at visits to OMG! Ubuntu! over three separate months: the month of the first pre-release back in June 2009, again 6-ish months later in January 2010 and then in April this year.

The results below show the top 3 rated browser for Linux users visiting OMG! Ubuntu! plus Midori’s share just for kicks, though note that Midori users often identify their browser as Safari in order to get it working with GMail thus Midori results are Midori + Safari/Linux combined. It should also be noted that Chromium and Chrome do not display independently but as one browser ‘Chrome’.

% of visits made using referenced browser on Linux.

June 2009 – The month of Google Chrome’s first official Linux release

• Firefox: 86.90%
• Chrome: 2.64%
• Opera: 3.75%
• Midori: 0.13%

January 2010

• Firefox: 56.93%
• Chrome: 31.49%
• Opera: 3.12%
• Midori: 0.87%

April 2010

• Firefox: 55.52%
• Chrome: 36.53%
• Opera: 2.82%
• Midori: 1.23%

As you can see – Chrome has grown massively in almost one year – largely at the expense of Firefox which has seen its share tumble from a mighty 86.90% to 55.52% in just under a year.

If we go full month-by-month breakdown we can see the adoption of Chome happens incredibly rapid, with each milestone bolstering its market share: -

2009

• June:  2.64%
• July:  3.39%
• August: 8.72%
• September: 11.56%
• October: 20.02%
• November: 21.75%
• December: 30.77% [first beta released]

2010

• January: 31.49%
• February: 33.02%
• March: 34.69%
• April: 36.53%
• May 1st – 23rd: 37.36%

Where now?

My disclaimer still rings true: These stats only represent Linux-based visitors to OMG! Ubuntu! and certainly are not flawless – Chromium, for example, is not counted as separate from Google Chrome in analytics. They do, nonetheless, give an insight into the meteoric rise of Chrome/ium and the seemingly dramatic fall of Firefox.

With Chromium set to be the default browser in Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition – and potentially the default browser in Ubuntu 11.04 Desktop – Chrome’s market share on Linux can only rise.

Continue reading

WebM/Vp8 now in Chromium Daily PPA

Linux users can try out Google’s new WebM video codec by using the latest daily build of Chromium from the Chromium Daily PPA.

Whilst WebM has pretty much the same quality as Flash I did note one difference: my CPU usage didn’t spike at all when watching a WebM video whereas I always notice a spike when using Flash.

Hit the link below to take a peek at some WebM-powered videos on YouTube and be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments!

•  http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=web&webm=1

Thanks to the ever awesome Bob ;)

Continue reading

Google Chrome Dev Channel adds Integrated Flash plugin - but not for x64bit users

Users of Google Chrome will soon no longer have to worry about installing and maintaining the Adobe Flash plug-in themselves. Google have taken the step of integrating the plugin directly into their browser, sidestepping the need for user intervention and ensuring all users are running the latest patched and security assured version.

A bold step and one designed primarily to ensure the continued safety of net users, some of whom retain using deprecated versions of flash with known security issues.

It is also a blatant move designed to ensure a flawless user experience on their forthcoming Google ChromeOS,

Enable internal flash in Google Chrome

Users of Google Chrome dev channel in x32bit Ubuntu can enable the ‘built in flash’ right now by adding the following flag to their Chrome shortcut/command:

--enable-internal-flash

Sadly there is no support for x64 bit users as of yet. As usual.

(Note: Whilst there is a 64bit Flash plugin available Google have NOT included it for x64 bit users)

Continue reading

Ubuntu Ambiance Chrome/ium Theme

Chrome/ium can now blend in perfectly with your Lucid desktop thanks to this Chrome theme by tobiash.

Be sure to set your title bars to system for full effect.

Download
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/elnmibmpefhmfgphdphdncoogpbfmlbp

Continue reading

Google Chrome “App Pack” PPA

Want some perfectly placed, ready made Chrome Web App shortcuts but can’t be bothered to do it yourself?

Just as you can install Prism apps for several Google webapps, the following PPA contains ready-made Chrome shortcuts and installs them into the correct folders within your menus. Saving you all of 3 minutes.

The web-apps included  are GMail, Google Tasks and Google Docs but expect further webapps to appear ready-made somewhere along the line.

Install

PPA: https://launchpad.net/~shanepatrickfagan/+archive/ppa/+packages

Alternatively just grab the .deb from the PPA @ https://launchpad.net/~shanepatrickfagan/+archive/ppa/+files/chrome-google-apps_0.4.2_all.deb

Continue reading

Get The ChromeOS Application Menu In Ubuntu [Working Again]

Google ChromeOS has the ‘application menu’ in the browser: -

You can, actually, get this in Google Chrome or Chromium.

• First you need to edit the command you start Chrome/ium with.
• Right click the menu in the top left hand corner. CHoose ‘edit menus’.
• Find your Chrome/ium launcher in the ‘Internet’ side pane.
• Click it and then choose ‘edit’ from the right hand side.
• In the ‘command’ field add the following at the end of the command:

-user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; CrOS i686 9.10; en-US) AppleWebKit/532.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/4.0.253.0 Safari/532.5" -pinned-tab-count=1

• Close and launch the browser from the menu.
• Then paste the following URL into your browser.

http://welcome-cros.appspot.com/menu

• Right click the tab and choose ‘pin’ to get a truly ChromeOS look!

Thanks to Mark for letting me know how to get this running again after Google nixed the previous way.

Continue reading

Bookmark Sync Now In Google Chrome

Bookmark Sync in Chromium landed a few days ago and today sees the turn of Google Chrome Unstable gaining this feature with the latest dev channel update.

As with Chromium you simply need to add the 

• --enable-sync

flag to your launcher. Like so: -

and the bookmark dialog will become active.

You need to enter your Google account details for the sync to work (it uses Google Docs to store the bookmarks.)

Continue reading

Official Chrome Extension Gallery Prepped, Not Yet Live

Google are prepping an official extension gallery for add-ons to their popular browser.

https://chrome.google.com/extensions links no-where as of yet, but then neither did the ‘themes’ gallery to start with.

According to developers on the Chrome Groups list, extensions are due to hit Chrome's beta channel in early December so one could assume this gallery will launch around the same time.

A Google Shaped Chrome Fist?
One does wonder what the criterion for add-ons shown the extension gallery will be given no user submissions are currently allowed for the themes gallery. (That is unless you’re a well known artist or Mariah Carey).

Will the gallery be full of official Google Add-ons? Will they allow Ad-blockers? What about YouTube download extensions?

Check out the OMG! UBUNTU! list of 15 awesome Chrome extensions and then our list of 5 newer extensions worth trying!

Continue reading

5 New Chrome Extensions Worth Trying – Twitter, Google Tasks, YouTube enhancer & more

It’s been a while since my last pick of the best Chrome extensions and to celebrate Chromium finally supporting extension “tool tips” here are 5 new “toolbar” extensions to enjoy!

Google Tasks

Manage your to-do’s in Chrome

Install Google Task Addon

ChromeBird

Tweet From Chrome
This is comparable to TwitterFox for Firefox. It allows you to tweet from Chrome.

Install ChromeBird

YouTube Fixer

Remove excess space, ads and annoyances from YouTube
Go from this: -


To this: -


Install Usable YouTube Fix

Google Reader Checker

Displays Unread RSS items in toolstrip

Install GReader

GMail Notifier

A new and improved GMail extension for alerting you to unread mails.
Install Improved GMail Checker

Continue reading

15 Useful Extensions For Google Chrome: Adblockers, flashblockers, session savers, mail notifiers, delicious, etc

Further to my previous post on "Why Google Chrome Should Be Your Default Browser", i thought i'd post a boring-yet-useful list of 15 Chrome extensions that make an already awesome browser even more awesome... er. Adblockers Two ad-blockers are available as extensions for Google Chrome/ium. Adsweep blocks and hides adverts with a minimum of fuss. http://www.adsweep.org/AdSweep.crx Adblock+ is the official Chrome version of the popular Firefox add-on. Actively in development and far more user-advanced than AdSweep - you can actively choose any advert or element that slips through to be crushed by the block-hammer! Preferences and options are accessed by clicking on what the developers call a "snazzy"staus bar entry. I call it an eyesore, but it does it's job! All the familiar features of the Firefox version are here - subscriptions lists, global filters, etc. http://ruzanow.ru/extensions/adblock.crx Flashblocker This extensions automatically stops any flash elements from loading and replaces them with a "play" button so you can choose what you want to view. http://www.chromeextensions.org/appearance-functioning/flashblock/ Gmail Displays current unread e-mail count in the status bar. https://dl-ssl.google.com/chrome/extensions/gmail.crx Hotmail Use Hotmail? Want a notifier like the Gmail extension above? Check out Hotmail Notifier. http://www.chromeplugins.org/google/chrome-plugins/hotmail-notifier-extension-8092.html (Sadly this does seem to be broke in current dev builds, but worth a mention anyway!) Google Reader & RSS Clean & Compact extension takes care of Google Reader's chrome cruft and presents your feeds with maximum room. Original Clean & Compact http://www.chromeextensions.org/social-communications/google-reader-compact-clean/ Google Reader Notifier works on the same principle as the GMail Notifier above. http://www.vasanth.in/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=6 Easy RSS Subscription button pops a RSS icon in the URL bar when an available feed is detected. Clicking this allows you to add the feed to Google Reader. https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&x=id%3Dnlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd%26uc%26lang%3Den-US Bookmarks Several popular online bookmarking services are avilable already. Delicious You can add and browse your delicious bookmarks from Chrome with this addon. Simply click on the bookmark icon to bookmark a site. This will open a popup window to allow you to tag, edit, etc the bookmark you're bookmarking! http://www.chromeextensions.org/social-communications/delicious-bookmarks/ Xmarks Xmarks is a popular "cloud storage" service for your bookmarks allowing you to sync bookmarks between browsers - and computers. Once installed it inserts an icon entry into the status bar. Clicking on this then open up the sync window. http://beta.xmarks.com Google Calendar Be alerted to forthcoming events in your Google Calendar with this nifty extension. You can use the arrows to skip between entries. http://www.chromeextensions.org/alerts-updates/gocalendar/ Translation Tools Bubble Translate easily translates highlighted text to and from a specified language via it's preference bar. http://code.google.com/p/bubble-translate/ Smooth scroll Does what it says in the tin: enables smooth scrolling in Google Chrome. http://www.chromeextensions.org/appearance-functioning/smoothscroll/ Session Savers Want to preserve a set of open tabs for easy access at a later date? Meet session saver! You can save multiple sets of tabs and open them with a click at a later date. http://www.chromeextensions.org/tabs/session-saver/ Password Manager Lastpass - a secure and popular password "manager" and form filler have released an Alpha version of their popular 'one click' password filler-out-er for Chrome. I don't use Lastpass so i haven't tried this personally, but reactions on the chromeplugins.org forum have been very good! https://lastpass.com/lpchrome.crx Chrome based 'grr': You can hide the extension toolbar at the bottom of Chrome/ium using Ctrl + Alt + B... but not in Linux! >_<

Continue reading

Google Chrome Artist's Themes Work With Linux Chrome (Sadly does Include the totally pointless Mariah Carey Theme!)

Google officially released a collection of 100 "Artists Themes for Chrome" today - a bunch of not entirely successful skins for Google Chrome designed by some of the worlds "best artists", including Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Karim Rashid, Jonathan Adler, Oscar de la Renta, Anita Kunz, Tom Sachs, Kate Spade, Donna Karan, Kid Robot, Casey Reas, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Graves, Todd Oldham, Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Mariah Carey. I'm please to report that they work fine in Google Chrome for Linux, so be sure to take a peek at the hard work that's gone into them. Such as the Mariah Carey theme (!): -

There are a hundred available so you're sure to find something you might like. Check them out over @ https://tools.google.com/chrome/intl/en/themes/index.html I realy like this one designed by Tom Sachs:

Continue reading