Native Client in Chrome: Google flexes Web muscle
Google has built its Native Client technology into its newest version of Chrome, endowing the browser with new processing power for running Web applications.
Native Client, or NaCl for short, is an ambitious Google project that, if successful, will help close one gap that separates Web applications from those that run natively on a computer's operating system. That would improve the competitive position of Web applications such as Google Docs compared to Microsoft Office--and thereby boost Google's Chrome OS project in comparison with Windows.
Most Web browsers run programs written in JavaScript or perhaps Flash, both of them running on a programming foundation that makes those programs slower than native software. But Native Client lets programmers write software that directly taps into x86 chip models such as AMD's Athlon or Intel's Core. Secial programming tools and a screening mechanism in the Native Client software itself are designed to provide security for what has historically been the risky process of downloading executable programs from the Net
Chrome Version: 4.0.220.1, released Friday, "introduces the Native Client as a built-in feature for the first time on Windows," said Jonathan Conradt, a Google engineering program manager, in a blog post about the release. Previously the software was available only as a browser plug-in.
Google also offers a variety of basic tests and more elaborate examples of what Native Client can do, though it takes a bit of technical configuration to get them working. Among them are spinning ray-traced globes, the Game of Life, and the Quake first-person shooter video game.
Native Client shows how Google is using Chrome as a vehicle to advance its Web programming agenda. While some competitors such as Microsoft have a strong business of software that runs natively on a computer, Google wants software to run on central servers on the Internet.
This cloud computing approach has some advantages--being able to more easily collaborate and share documents for example, or to see and edit documents using any PC or smartphone. Google was born on the Web and has an incumbent's advantage there over rivals, but as an applications foundation, the Web remains slow and primitive compared to native applications in many regards.
Native Client isn't the only effort to change that situation. Google also has a plug-in called O3D--also a project it's building into Chrome--designed to let programs tap into hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. It works at a higher programming level than a related effort from Mozilla and Firefox called WebGL.
Google first released Native Client in December 2008. In June 2009, declaring confidence in NaCl's security model, Google it announced it was bringing Native Client out of research and into production.
Though Native Client is built into the new Chrome version, there are plenty of qualifiers for the release. First, it's only in the developer preview version of Chrome, and only for Windows right now. Second, it's disabled by default; adding "--internal-nacl" as a command-line switch at Chrome launch will activate it, according to an explanatory page.
The new version of Chrome offers a variety of other features too, notably a number updates for extensions to let people customize the browser.
For example, extensions now appear as an option on the wrench menu for browser settings. More obviously from a user-interface perspective, the browser actions interface (see illustration below) is now available to place extensions in the form of a button to Chrome's main toolbar.
Browser Actions is a new extensions interface that let browser customizations take the form of small icons in the browser's main toolbar. This illustration shows what Google believes to be an overabundance of such extension buttons.
(Credit: Google)
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
...just hope this one is more secure.
Google is being CUTE. NaCl is common salt. Of course, they didn't think it through, as NaCl is also corrosive to Chrome, taking off it's luster and ruining it's protective properties, letting the rust get through.
Hopefully Google spent more time making NaCl safe than they did thinking about the cute name...
Now in this case, there is a bit of difference... IE is ingrained into the whole OS, due to Microsoft's efforts to bolster the 15-year-old claim that the browser is a 'vital' part of the OS. This makes ActiveX (and IE) a flaming security hazard, and is more trouble than it's worth.
In Google's case, they don't have to worry about the rest of the OS like IE does - if they make a pipe of sorts that drills all the way down, they can make it fairly secure from the rest of the OS - much like a software hypervisor insulates virtual machines from the OS. They don't have to worry about Chrome components being needed by the rest of the Windows OS (and *nix isn't built with such crap dependencies anyway).
"Not everyone hates ActiveX, and many of the problems that lead people to 'hate it' have been fixed for quite a while now in Windows Vista and Windows 7"
Even Microsoft admits that ActiveX is a hazard (see above about ESC) - they don't care if consumers or workstations get bit, but they go out of their way to protect their server products by making it nearly impossible to use the thing (for instance, in the one aspect which most admins did use it - Windows Update).
Re. NaCl, you should read up on it. Google's done some amazing things, to make it EXTREMELY secure:
http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/
...do you ever use virtual machines? same-same ;)
Seriously, dude - use a rational argument of go home.
Another POS (pile of...) reply.
No, that's not true.
Any time it's done, there's some hole opened by the "challenger" that makes it doable.
It's not being done and it's not the most insecure, also-ran OS.
It's simply the best desktop OS there is.
OSX is good, but so is Windows 7 (pointless debate to follow).
The real issue is the arrogant (we're perfect) users that think they'll never fall victim to social engineering or Trojans.
Its the real world people.
Its hard to get stats for virus from people who don't think they need to detect them? How would you know?
I fight that battle all the time.
I do run anti-virus software - not because I'm worried NOW, but for the future.
I don't like arrogant, blind following of ANY OS.
Just makes no sense.
BTW, I'm running Win7 Ultimate on my Boot Camp - pretty good so far, but Apple needs to update the BC drivers for some things.
That thing sure boots quickly.
Almost like something's missing ;)
Google is being cute. NaCl is common salt, as stated.
Of course, they didn't think it through, as NaCl is also corrosive to Chrome, taking off it's luster and ruining it's protective properties, letting the rust get through. Talk about an unintended metaphor...
Hopefully Google spent more time making NaCl safe than they did thinking about the cute name...
No need to reinvent the wheel.
Google never explicitly said that they want software to run on the internet, they've only mentioned it as a platform, and with advances like Gears, I don't think that's their goal.
Check out what Disney/ABC is doing, with O3D:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0tzZiTXEB8
There is also a demo of Large Animal's Infinite Journey O3D game here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAgug5D6Kdg
For those who are curious about the difference between WebGL & O3D:
- O3D is a retained mode API.
- WebGL is an immediate mode API.
Google it, if you are interested to learn more.
Definitely, exciting days ahead, for web developers!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10357723-264.html
Along the same lines, though not as glamorous as 3D, SVG and Canvas are arriving in many non-IE browsers as retained-mode and immediate-mode APIs for 2D vector graphics.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10365636-264.html
they will run backups properly , thir UPS is better then mine, and my son is definitely not around to break anything.
There was a time, when a corporate could work offline, not anymore
so, for us netizens, that already became web-dependent "the cloud" and web apps are better choices, and we thank Google and Amazon for their great effort in bringing this for us.
Here are some HTML5 sites & demos to try with Chrome 3 (or Chrome Frame for IE, with the URLs prefixed with "cf:"):
http://www.youtube.com/html5
http://demo.sproutcore.com/video/
http://www.rgraph.net/
http://html5gallery.com/
http://tinyvid.tv/
The above links may also work with Safari 4 & Firefox 3.5, although I didn't try them.
There's also a Javascript NES emulator here (you definitely need Chrome, to play the games):
http://benfirshman.com/projects/jsnes/
The above are just HTML5 & JavaScript. Imagine what you can do with NaCl, O3D & WebGL!
Not to be a downer, but reimplementing apps I already have in a web browser isn't all that exciting IMO. I'm still trying to figure out what all the fuss is about.
Moving apps to the browser make them accessible from:
- any OS (Windows, OS X, Ubuntu, ChromeOS, Android, Moblin, iPhone, Symbian, WebOS, Blackberry, WinMo, ?).
- any device type (smartphones, netbooks, notebooks, desktops, tablets, eReaders, photo frames, carputers, ?).
- any CPU architecture (x86, ARM, MIPS, ?).
Implementing web technologies, like HTML5, WebGL, O3D, etc., natively in the browser also reduces/eliminates the need for proprietary technologies, like Flash & Silverlight, which don't integrate seamlessly into a web page & are CPU & battery hogs (especially important for mobile devices like smartphones).
Keep going.
no 64bit support? :C
- by October 3, 2009 8:53 PM PDT
- What's Google Chrome? Oh wait I remember it's a piece of crap which takes years to open there own ORKUT . I would rather prefer to pay for more secure, safe and trusted companies like Apple and Microsoft. And last but not least when google is planing to stop using our user data. (Search related data which generates by using google search engine)
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- by forever4now October 4, 2009 1:21 AM PDT
- "secure, safe and trusted" used to describe Microsoft????
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- by BIGELLOW October 26, 2009 10:28 PM PDT
- Welcome, troll.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (56 Comments)Microsoft is as close to the exact opposite of that description, as you can get.