Webware

Google co-founder Sergey Brin

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's dual-pronged operating-system strategy will likely produce a single OS down the road, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Many Google observers were puzzled when the company announced plans for Chrome OS in July, coming amid growing acceptance of the company's Android operating-system project as a smartphone and Netbook OS. After all, why design an open-source operating system with the goal of reinventing the personal computing experience when you're currently developing another open-source operating system with the goal of reinventing the mobile computing experience?

Google executives, including CEO Eric Schmidt, have downplayed the conflict ever since, asking for time to let the projects evolve. And a few days after Chrome OS was revealed, Android chief Andy Rubin said device makers "need different technology for different products," explaining that Android has a lot of unique code that makes it suitable for use in a phone and Chrome has unique benefits of its own.

But Brin, speaking informally to reporters after the company's Chrome OS presentation on Thursday, said "Android and Chrome will likely converge over time," citing among other things the common Linux and Webkit code base present in both projects.

It's not clear when Google thinks it might want to merge the projects, but it seems to be eyeing a future in which the smartphones currently served by Android meld into the Netbooks Google has in mind for Chrome OS. Of course, Brin's vision might not necessarily be shared by all members of the Google management team.

"As Sundar [Pichai, Google's vice president of product management] said in his presentation, we're reaching a perfect storm of converging trends where computers are behaving more like mobile devices, and phones are behaving more like small computers," Google said in a statement in response to questions about how and when the two projects would merge. "Having two open source operating systems from Google provides both users and device manufacturers with more choice and helps contribute a wealth of new code to the open source community."

Any future combination of Chrome OS and Android could be aimed at a new type of device distinct from Android's smartphones or Chrome OS's Netbooks.

(Credit: Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

This also allows Google to pick and choose the best ideas to emerge from each project, setting up a bit of friendly internal competition to develop new operating-system technologies. The main difference is that while Android is a shipping product, Chrome OS is still very much in the research stage, with devices not expected until late 2010.

It's way too early to know how that pending convergence will affect development for the different operating systems, as it seems pretty clear Google is spending most of its time at the moment building out each one separately.

But Brin--no idle bystander--believes at some point, Google will emerge with one next-generation operating system.

Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3, Google Chrome 4, Apple's Safari 4, and Opera 10 include features that block sites known to host malware and malicious downloads. All but Opera also let you browse without leaving any tracks. But just as important as these protections is ensuring that whichever browser you use is thoroughly patched.

Filtering out bad sites
Firefox's built-in antiphishing tool claims to update its bad-site database 48 times a day, according to Mozilla's Firefox security page. Firefox 3 uses Google's Safe Browsing service to automatically block sites that are known to host malware. The Google Code site describes how Safe Browsing works in Firefox.

To verify that attack-site blocking is enabled in Firefox, click Tools > Options > Security and make sure "Block reported attack sites" is checked.

Firefox will prevent known-bad sites from opening when "Block reported attack sites" is checked.

(Credit: Mozilla Foundation)

The same feature is built into Google's own Chrome browser. You can ensure that malware-site filtering is on in Chrome by clicking the wrench icon in the top-right corner, choosing Options, and selecting Under the Hood. "Enable phishing and malware filtering" should be checked. The Google Chrome Help site describes the feature. (Hint: This page looks very similar to the description on the Google Code site.)

Google's Chrome browser blocks known-bad sites when "Enable phishing and malware protection" is checked.

(Credit: Google)

The SmartScreen technology in version 8 of Internet Explorer blocks known-malicious downloads as well as bad URLs. Other new security features in IE 8 include automatic blocking of click-jacking and cross-site scripting attacks, automatic crash recovery, and highlighting of the actual domain name in the address bar. The Microsoft Security site describes the SmartScreen Filter and includes links to a SmartScreen FAQ and information for site managers.

Apple's Safari browser added phishing and malware blocking in version 3.2, which was released in late 2008; read about this and other security features in Safari 4 on the Apple Safari site. Likewise, Opera's Fraud Protection predates the phishing and malware filters in IE and Firefox and is enhanced in the latest version 10. But attack-site blocking is only one of Opera's many security features, which you can read about on the Opera site.

Browsing in private
To activate private browsing in Firefox 3, click Tools > Start Private Browsing, or simply press Ctrl-Shift-P. You can set Firefox to start in private-browsing mode by clicking Tools > Options > Privacy and check "Automatically start Firefox in a private browsing session." The Mozilla support site provides more information about this feature. Likewise, put IE 8 in private-browsing mode by clicking Safety > InPrivate Browsing, or by pressing Ctrl-Shift-P. You can also open a new tab and click either Browse with InPrivate or Open an InPrivate Window.

IE 8 also lets you control the information about your browsing habits that's shared with Web tracking services. To activate this feature, click Tools > InPrivate Filtering Settings and choose "Let me choose which providers receive my information." This opens the InPrivate Filtering settings dialog, where you can turn filtering off, choose which services to block from tracking you, or automatically block all trackers.

Internet Explorer 8's InPrivate Filtering lets you block some or all Web tracking services.

(Credit: Microsoft)

You can open an incognito window in Google Chrome by clicking the wrench icon in the top-right corner and choosing "New incognito window," or simply press Ctrl-Shift-N. The incognito icon (a shadow figure in a fedora and glasses) appears in the top-left corner of the browser window. The Chrome support site offers a more detailed description of this feature.

Opera lacks an equivalent private-browsing capability but does offer private searching and other identity-blocking features, as described on the Opera site. To activate private browsing in Safari, simply click Safari Settings Menu > Private Browsing.

Automatic and not-so-automatic browser updates
Patching is a way of life with nearly all software, but especially with browsers and the media players associated with them: Adobe Reader, the Flash Player, Apple's QuickTime, and Sun's Java, among others. All of a browser's security features can be rendered useless by a piece of malware that takes advantage of an unpatched hole in the program.

Firefox 3 alerts users to the presence of an update and now also notifies you when your Flash Player is out-of-date. Internet Explorer 8 updates via the Windows Update/Microsoft Update services. Google Chrome made a splash by being the first browser to update itself in the background without requiring any prompting from users. Safari updates automatically via Apple's update service, which also serves up patches automatically for QuickTime, iTunes, and other Apple software. Opera also notifies you automatically when a new version is available.

But updating is too important to leave to others. Back in April, I described Secunia's Online Software Inspector and downloadable Personal Software Inspector, which identify out-of-date programs on your PC. The programs mentioned in that post have all been updated since, but Secunia's services should point you to the most recent versions.

(Note that Secunia sometimes reports a program as being out-of-date when in fact you have the latest version. On my PC, it continually reports my up-to-date Flash Player as being in need of an update, for example. But the free service Secunia provides is worth putting up with this and similar minor annoyances.)

Netbooks running Google's Chrome OS might be a little different from the standard Netbook, based on Google's specification requirements.

(Credit: Google)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--There's still an awful lot about Google's Chrome OS project that remains up in the air, but Thursday's demonstration did reveal a bit about how Google thinks the Netbook should evolve.

At an event here Thursday, Google showed off the browser-based operating system for the first time since announcing it in July. Chrome OS won't be available for consumers to purchase for about a year, although developers can get started playing around with the source code as of today, thanks to the open-source release of the code.

Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google, took about 50 members of the press through a basic tour of Chrome OS that didn't reveal a whole lot more about what was already known about Google's plans for the operating system. The basic look-and-feel of the software greatly resembles the Chrome browser, as expected, and it's designed to provide a fast lightweight computing experience for Netbook users.

Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management for Google, explains Google's vision for Chrome OS Netbooks Thursday.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

But Google did provide some glimpses of what it thinks a Netbook should resemble. For one thing, it plans to develop a detailed specification of hardware components that Chrome OS Netbook makers must adhere to in order to use the operating system.

"We really want software to understand the underlying hardware," Pichai said. Whether he intended to or not, with that statement he revealed that for Google, reinventing the personal computing experience is about more than the software.

How so? Google seems to agree with a fair amount of Netbook users--not to mention Apple COO Tim Cook--that current Netbooks with cramped keyboards and small touch pads aren't going to cut it in the long run. Pichai did not provide specific details, but hinted that users could expect Chrome OS Netbooks to have slightly larger keyboards and screens than some of the current models for sale.

Chrome OS will run on either x86 or ARM processors, giving hardware manufacturers some choices as to how they want to build their systems. But they will have to use solid-state drives based off of flash memory, presumably for performance and reliability reasons, although they won't have to use a lot of memory because Chrome OS is designed to start most data in the cloud with very little local storage.

These Netbooks will be designed with 802.11n Wi-Fi chips in mind, Pichai said. However, a device such as this--designed almost exclusively for online use--may not be as compelling if users are stuck bouncing from Wi-Fi hotspot to Wi-Fi hotspot.

Google wants to catalyze the era of Web applications with its Chrome OS project, but Mozilla has no plans for its own browser-based operating system, at least for now.

"We're really focused on making the Web the right platform of whatever operating system one is using. That's a fair amount of work," Mozilla Foundation Chairman Mitchell Baker said. "I think we're going to continue to focus for quite awhile on the Web itself as a platform and the capabilities of the Web rather than build an operating system of our own and pull everybody into our world."

Mozilla Foundation Chairman Mitchell Baker

(Credit: Mozilla)

Baker shared the thoughts in an interview about the Mozilla Foundation's report of $79 million. The foundation isn't strapped for cash, but it is financially tiny compared to the three main rivals in the browser market today, Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

Microsoft was largely dormant when Firefox was getting its start five years ago, but the company is lighting a fire under its Internet Explorer developers for IE 9. Among the features the company touted are faster execution of Web-based JavaScript programs, better compliance with Web standards, and higher performance in general.

Internet Explorer remains the dominant browser in use today. Today, the elderly IE 6, dating from 2001, still is the most widely used version, and its widespread use is an anchor that keeps Web developers and therefore other browsers from advancing as fast as they might. So, unsurprisingly, Baker was comfortable with the prospect of a higher-powered IE being resurgent.

"If it could resurge enough to pull the hundreds of millions of people still using IE 6, we'd all be ecstatic," she said. "A lot of people are going to continue to use IE. They get it on their machine. If Microsoft makes that product more capable so the Web can move forward, there's good in that."

The Mozilla Foundation, of which Firefox developer Mozilla Corp. is a taxable subsidiary, gets the bulk of its revenue from Google through a search-ad deal that runs through 2011 at present. Search traffic that stems from Firefox's built-in search bar is set by default to go to Google, and a portion of the resulting Google search-ad revenue goes back to Mozilla.

Mozilla is looking to diversify its revenue sources, though, Baker said, and has taken some small steps.

"We did some small diversification in search, for example in Russia," using Google rival Yandex's services, she said. "We look at diversification, but we're not rushing into it."

And she's comfortable with today's funding situation because it doesn't force Mozilla to take Firefox in a direction it doesn't want to go.

"We have search in the product because we want it. We don't have any other discussions with Google about what the product is," she said. "The search and revenue relationship is completely distinct from the product development relationship."

Though Mozilla's revenue grew only at 5 percent from 2007 to 2008, compared to 12 percent the year before, Baker isn't concerned. "It matches our projections" of slow, steady growth, she said. "We're pretty much in line."

Digging into the financial statement, it should be noted that the foundation's $79 million in revenue is after a $7.8 million unrealized loss in the value of its investments. As the economy improves, it's possible those investments will recover some of their value.

The foundation is making more money than it loses. Expenses were $49 million for 2008, according to the financial statement.

"We have adequate resources to do what we have planned, plus save a little bit," Baker said. "Right now we're not bumping up against the ceiling. Our revenue is adequate to meet our needs. We try to be careful with money."

The Internal Revenue Service is scrutinizing Mozilla's corporate structure--a foundation with two taxable if not exactly for-profit subsidiaries. The foundation disclosed the scrutiny a year ago, and that investigation is continuing, Baker said.

"The IRS can be a very slow-moving organization. It's still an open discussion," she said, and the foundation is taking the matter seriously. "We don't have a clear idea what the IRS is thinking."

Two years ago, the Mozilla Foundation established its second taxable subsidiary, Mozilla Messaging, which focuses on the Thunderbird e-mail software and more recently on the Web-based Raindrop universal communications service. For now, that project gets its funding from the Firefox side of the house, but Baker plans to increase its financial focus once the near-final Thunderbird 3 is finished.

"The task now is to ship first Thunderbird 3. We expect to see that this year," Baker said. Mozilla overall is set up to be sustainable, not to be a money machine, but Mozilla Messaging will need to generate more revenue on its own eventually to help with that sustainability effort.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google has released the source code for its Chrome OS project, as it prepares to show off the lightweight operating system for the first time.

Sundar Pichai, Google's VP of product management

(Credit: Google)

Google has invited much of the technology press to an event here at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters Thursday morning to demonstrate Chrome OS, which it is developing for Netbooks as a new type of operating system. However, those of you who speak code can get started poking around with the operating system at the Chromium project blog, as spotted by the Google Operating System blog.

Several Google engineers are expected to speak at the event Thursday morning, as Google shows off Chrome OS after first announcing it in July. We'll have regular updates as events warrant.

Updated 10:10 a.m. PST: Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management for Google, kicked off the presentation by setting expectations: Google is about a year away from releasing Chrome OS. There will be no beta today, and no products to announce, but the main news is that the "code is fully open," he said, allowing Google developers to work on the project hand-in-hand with the community.

Updated 10:22 a.m. PST: Pichai ran through a lot of things we already know building up to the big reveal: Netbook shipments are growing, people are doing more and more in their browser as opposed to running desktop applications, and laptops and smartphones are converging into new types of devices like tablets and e-readers.

Every application on Chrome OS will be a Web application, Pichai said. This will help improve speed and especially security, since users won't be installing applications to their systems, he said.

Google is actually running the presentation on a Chrome laptop, although Pichai warns that because Chrome OS is a year away from release, the actual UI could change between now and then. If you've used Chrome, you've seen the basic Chrome OS UI.

Updated 10:36 a.m. PST: Matt Papakipos, engineering director for Chrome OS, took over for Pichai to explain how Google is making Chrome OS work under the hood. Google's whole idea is to make Chrome-based laptops more like televisions: flip a switch, and it's on. They are eliminating the boot loader and optimizing the kernel so that all the services that normally load with an OS at start-up don't load until they are needed.

They are using a verified boot process that uses multiple signature keys to verify whether or not Web applications are legitimate. Papakipos demonstrates what happens when Chrome OS tries to download malware: it detects the malware and reboots the system back to a clean image, which is much easier than doing such a thing on a regular PC or Mac because it's Web-oriented and the data is backed up in the cloud.

Updated 10:46 a.m. PST: Pichai retakes the stage to talk about how Chrome OS Netbooks will make it on store shelves. They're not ready to talk about these plans in detail since we're about a year away, but there's a few plans that are relatively solid.

Google will specify components for Chrome OS Netbook partners: you won't be able to download Chrome OS on an existing Netbook, you'll have to buy a Chrome OS-optimized Netbook. For example, Google won't support hard drives: Chrome OS Netbooks will have to use solid-state drives. "We really want the software to understand the underlying hardware," Pichai said.

The hope is that these Netbooks will be ready by next year's holiday season, Pichai said. There's no word on price yet, but Google hinted that it's going to require Netbook makers to deliver slightly larger Netbooks than are currently en vogue, with full-size keyboards and bigger touch pads.

Updated 10:55 a.m. PST: Even though Google is specifying hardware components, Pichai was not ready to talk about pricing for Chrome OS-Netbooks during a question and answer session. It's hard to predict a year ahead of time what components will cost, he claimed, and said that Google is not setting a specific price point for Chrome OS Netbooks. He did say that Chrome OS Netbooks will likely slot into the prices that people are used to paying for Netbooks today.

Updated 11:11 a.m. PST: Pichai said Google is working on ways to make Chrome OS useful in offline situations, taking advantage of technologies like Google Gears. But this is an operating system designed primarily for online use, he said, later dodging a question about whether or not wireless WAN chips for cellular networks would be part of the Chrome OS Netbook specifications.

Chrome OS Netbooks will run on both x86 and ARM chips, Pichai said. All applications created for the Netbooks will be Web applications, he said: Google does not appear to have plans to allow native applications to run directly on the processor.

Google is hosting a press event at 10 a.m. PST at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters to update the world on its plans for world domination via the release of its second operating system (after Android), the Google Chrome OS (FAQ). Google VP Sundar Pichai and Engineering Director Matthew Papakipos will reveal technical details and launch plans, and will have demos. Google will be streaming the announcement.

I'll be in the audience when the event kicks off and will be live-blogging my thoughts on the talk as it happens. Josh Lowensohn will be handling reader feedback during the live blog, so if you want to share your observations on what's happening or have questions, please contribute in the live blog window below once the event goes live. Stephen Shankland will also be at the site to grab photos, and Tom Krazit will have the full news rundown and analysis after the event closes.

The developer preview version of Chrome now promotes an as-yet unworking link to an extensions gallery.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google is on the verge of launching a Web site to showcase its extensions to customize what its browser can do.

The company's latest developer preview edition, Chrome 4.0.249.0, promotes the feature on its opening screen and its new-tab page. "New! Google Chrome now has extensions and bookmark sync," the page reads, offering a link to a site that's not public yet, https://chrome.google.com/extensions. (Bookmark sync is already available.)

Extensions and support for Mac OS X and Linux are the headline features of Chrome 4.0. It's available as a beta for Windows, with Mac OS X and Linux beta availability expected in early December. According to the Chromium development calendar, the beta is planned for December 8 release and the stable release of Chrome 4.0 is due January 12.

A number of third-party galleries for Chrome extensions already are available, but programmers for the project have said on mailing lists that a Google site is planned. Earlier this year, Google shipped a version of Chrome that pointed to a collection of visual themes before the Chrome themes gallery was actually live to the public.

Extensions are a key asset of one Chrome competitor, Mozilla's Firefox; extensions permit people to customize the browser and add new features without burdening the overall project. Firefox is getting a new extensions framework, Jetpack, starting with version 3.7 due in the first half of 2010, and Mozilla has just launched its own Jetpack gallery.

Google appears ready to show off its progress in developing Chrome OS, with plans to host an event Thursday at its headquarters.

Chrome OS, which is expected to launch next year, is Google's project to develop an operating system for Netbooks based on a lightweight browser-like experience. It announced the project to great fanfare in July, but has not had much to say about it since.

Expect that to change Thursday. Google will "show a few demos," according to an invitation distributed to members of the press Tuesday, as well as deliver a presentation from Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Matthew Papakipos, engineering director for Google Chrome OS. We'll be there, so be sure to come back on Thursday if you're interested in learning more about Chrome OS.

Google has updated the stable build of its Chrome browser with two fixes. Google Chrome 3.0.195.33 plugs a security hole that could have allowed a malicious Web site to set custom HTTP headers on cross-origin options requests. A second bug fixed in version 3.0.195.33 removes a dependency on a Windows library file that was not actually required by Chrome. Earlier versions of Chrome would fail silently if that DLL file was missing or rights-restricted.

The Google Chrome developer's channel also updated Friday. Kiosk mode has been activated on all platforms, although the status bar-hiding feature that also sets the full-screen mode as the default doesn't work yet for Macs. However, numerous other fixes were implemented for the Mac version. These include a "bookmark all tabs" feature, keyboard hot key fixes, and a fix that stops PDF files from being opened by QuickTime.

The developer's build of Google Chrome is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The changelog for the stable build is available here, and the changelog for the developer's build is here.