Google Chrome For Linux August 16, 2009
Posted by granthamtech in Browsers, Google, Linux.Tags: alpha, browser, Browsers, chrome, crunchbang, dillo, google chrome, Linux
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I’m rather looking forward to the time when Google finally releases its Chrome browser for Linux. I know it has been available on Windows for quite some time. But for us Linux types? Nada. Well not exactly nada but up to this point only an alpha version is available and it’s not all that easy to find either. You can go here to get a .deb file.
So, rather than wait who knows how long for the final product, I thought I’d download the alpha and give it a try. I have to say that I am impressed with it’s performance. I usually write my blogging nonsense on a second hand, 800mhz Pentium III, ram challenged (256K) IBM Thinkpad T21 running the slimline CrunchBang Linux. This is perfectly fine for text processing but can be pretty treacle like when browsing with Firefox. In fact, because the T21 is so underpowered I would sometimes revert to using the tiny but highly functional Dillo browser to get a decent response from the machine. But with Chrome I’m seeing a “mainstream” browser that loads fast, runs fast and seems fairly robust if not pushed.
As one would expect, the alpha version of Chrome for Linux is far from complete. There is no Flash support and the bookmark menuing, at least for deep menus, teeters agonisingly close to being unusable. It may be that, being so incomplete, Chrome only appears to be quick. Maybe when they have bolted on all the missing bits it will lose some of its pace. On the other hand perhaps there are optimisations still to be carried out. At any rate the remarkable speed characteristics of the browser hopefully will, for the most part, be carried through to a beta and final version.
If it does then it will be my preferred browser for any lower powered machines. I’ll reserve the light weight Dillo browser for the really hard cases. In any case even this feature incomplete alpha version works well enough right now for my needs on this computer. Not a bad outcome for what was just a speculative download born of impatience. Will I replace Firefox with Chrome on my main machines? Probably not. Not unless Chrome equivalents of the (currently) irreplaceable NoScript and FireBug plugins find their way into the Google browser.
Give Me The Moonlight…. April 6, 2009
Posted by granthamtech in Browsers, Linux.Tags: flash, italian, italy, learning italian, Linux, moonlight, rai, rai click, silverlight, tv, web tv
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I’m going to temporarily turn down the volume on my “Grumpy” switch for this post in order pay a compliment and to say well done to RAI, the Italian national broadcaster. Over the last few years I have been trying to learn to speak the language of Italy and one part of the learning process was to watch the web TV Flash based output of RAI courtesy of their RAI Click site.
From RAI Click I could select from hundreds of programmes that covered various topics that included news, politics, travel, cooking and sundry cop dramas. Even if the quality wasn’t always the highest it was more than good enough to help me soak up pronunciations and comprehension.
But then, disaster! RAI Click disappeared to be replaced by a new slick, but chronically slow, site that only offered programmes if you had Silverlight installed. As Silverlight is Microsoft Windows software my Linux machine certainly didn’t have it and was not going to have it any time soon. I was miffed to say the least. I couldn’t understand why RAI would choose to exclude that part of their audience that used a non Windows operating system.
So I sniffed, muttered about Microsoft and pockets and, other than to write off RAI as a source, thought not much more about it. But today I discovered that Linux based visitors to the RAI site are prompted to download Moonlight, the open source version of Silverlight. To my great joy and satisfaction all RAI web TV will play on my Linux machine using the Firefox Moonlight plugin.
Well done RAI. By making your site a more open platform you have expanded your audience considerably. Maybe you could have stayed with Flash in the first place but thanks anyway.
The normal “Grumpy” service will be restored tomorrow.
Surfing The Web: A Loss Of Innocence April 1, 2009
Posted by granthamtech in Browsers, Google, Online Security.Tags: Browsers, browsing, Google, noscript, Online Security, world wide web, www
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Online security is something I am hopelessly obsessive about. I am, for example, quite prepared to restrict my internet banking to a Linux Live CD session, selected at random. For me NoScript is always setup to allow “whitelists” of safe sites that I trust even though that means putting up with some other non-functioning sites. For me the enhanced security I get more than outweighs the inconvenience.
However I have to admit that this defensive approach to surfing the net does very much go against the way it was used in the early days of the World Wide Web. In the beginning, as it were, we could browse freely from page to page, clicking on hyperlinks without needing to be concerned about picking up some form of malware. With each successive click of a hyperlink we’d be taken somewhere possibly exciting, somewhere hopefully illuminating but always somewhere different. It really was a voyage of discovery, a magical mystery mystery tour in fact.
Today however you’d be wise not just blindly clicking on any link on a page, or even in a Google search result list without giving at least some consideration as to where the link might take you. Luckily, in most cases, browsers will let you know the web address you are about to click on thus giving you an opportunity to make a judgement about whether to do so or not.
In using this defensive mode of browsing we have certainly lost something of the sense of discovery and exploration that was there before the bad guys got involved. And, of course, you can always resort to using sandboxed, throwaway, virtual machines and get back to what surfing used to be. An exciting, but safe, journey into the unknown.
So it is a shame that instead of being welcoming the web must now be considered as potentially hostile territory. The good old days are gone, and given the ongoing war that goes on continuously between the malware creators and the rest of us, they are not coming back soon.
Browsers: Blood In the Sand March 24, 2009
Posted by granthamtech in Browsers, Google, Online Security.Tags: browser wars, Browsers, chrome, firefox, ie, noscript, pwn2own, safari
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For those of use who value our privacy and our security online there is interesting news from the annual Pwn2Own event held recently. (As an aside Pwn2Own is usually pronounced Pown to Own and the unlikely verb ‘pown’, at least in this context, refers to the process of compromising a computer system).
The object of the event was to pit, in controlled circumstances, fully patched versions of all of the major browsers (except Opera – not sure why) against a number of competing hackers. Any hacker who succeeded in breaking in to a browser receives a prize of money and/or hardware. On the face of it such an event may seem to some to be no more than an unhealthy gladiatorial circus designed to please crowds of onlookers who are hoping to see the spilling of browser blood.
In fact it is a useful way to stress test and subsequently highlight weaknesses in key software. In this very public way manufacturers will hopefully be alerted to whatever shortcomings may be exposed and, hopefully, actually do something to remove the exposure.
So what was the result? Very quickly Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox were all taken down by crafted attacks from the contestants. At the end of the proceedings the last browser standing, uncompromised, was Chrome. It is understood that the sand boxed nature of Chrome made it much less vulnerable to attack than the other browsers.
As a Firefox user this result has given me some pause for thought. I would be very unwilling to move away from the Firefox and the NoScript plugin combination but if NoScript or an equivalent was available on Chrome and if Chrome ever makes it to a Linux version I’d be sorely tempted.
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