New Chrome browser fastest Google beta yet

The new beta of Chrome for Windows is nearly a fifth faster than its more stable sibling, but still lags behind speed leader Opera, benchmark tests show.

According to tests run by Computerworld, the Chrome beta, which Google launched yesterday, is the second fastest of the major Windows browsers. Chrome 5.0.375.29 also renders JavaScript about 17% faster than Chrome 4.1.249.1064, the current "stable" edition. Google simultaneously supports three lines of Chrome, ranked in descending order of stability as its stable, beta and dev channels.

But Opera Software's Opera 10.53 remains the king of JavaScript, with benchmark scores about 16% faster than those by the newest Chrome beta. The Norwegian browser first took the crown last February, when the browser debuted a new JavaScript engine dubbed Carakan, and surged past Apple's Safari for Windows and Chrome, the former No. 1 and No. 2 browsers.

Other browsers held their usual spots in the latest round of tests. Safari 4.0.5 was only slightly slower than the stable edition of Chrome, and so held down the No. 3 spot, while Mozilla's Firefox 3.6.3 was just over half as fast as Safari and Chrome. Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), as usual, brought up the rear as the slowest of the five browsers in JavaScript rendering: IE8 was more than 12 times slower than Opera 10.53.

Computerworld ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite in Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (SP3) three times for each browser, then averaged the scores to arrive at the final rankings.

On Tuesday, Google said the newest Chrome beta was 35% faster on the SunSpider tests than the beta of its earlier version 4.0 for Windows. Computerworldwasn't able to verify that claim -- Google updates its browser automatically, without user intervention, making it difficult to keep Chrome on a specific version -- but also tested the newest beta against the previous beta, marked as Chrome 5.0.342.8.

The update boosted Chrome's speed by 6% over that beta, which Google released in late March.

Other additions include support for several HTML5 features, such as geo-location and drag-and-drop; synchronization of browser settings to effectively "clone" Chrome on multiple machines; and the ability to use extensions when working in Chrome's "Incognito" private browsing mode.

This beta also introduces the integration of Adobe's Flash Player to Chrome's beta channel.

Google debuted built-in Flash in developer builds at the end of March, when it announced a partnership with Adobe, and said it was packaging Flash with Chrome downloads and would silently update the often-patched media player using the browser's background mechanism.

The move, Adobe said at the time, would keep Chrome users safer since they wouldn't have to remember to update or deal with update notifications.

Chrome 5.0.375.29 beta can be downloaded from Google's Web site for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

China rejects claims of cyber attacks on Google

China has denied any state involvement in alleged cyber attacks on Google and accused the US of double standards.

A Chinese industry ministry spokesman told the state-run Xinhua news agency that claims that Beijing was behind recent cyber attacks were "groundless".
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked China to investigate claims by Google that it had been targeted by China-based hackers.
The US search giant has threatened to withdraw from China.
"The accusation that the Chinese government participated in [any] cyber attack, either in an explicit or inexplicit way, is groundless. We [are] firmly opposed to that," the unnamed spokesman of China's ministry of industry and information technology told Xinhua.
"China's policy on internet safety is transparent and consistent," he added.
Separately, China's state-run China Daily newspaper said America's internet strategy was "to exploit its advantages in internet funds, technology and marketing and export its politics, commerce and culture to other nations for political, commercial and cultural interests of the world's only superpower".
It also described the US government as being hypocritical, saying the country's "certain government agencies" had reportedly illegally checked a massive number of personal e-mail accounts.

Clinton's speech

On Thursday, Mrs Clinton urged Beijing to investigate the alleged cyber attacks on Google.
"We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions," she said.
Mrs Clinton added that companies such as the US giant should refuse to support "politically motivated censorship".
Again in reference to China, she said that any country which restricted free access to information risked "walling themselves off from the progress of the next century".
Google said on 12 January that hackers had tried to infiltrate its software coding and the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, in a "highly sophisticated" attack.
The California-based company, which launched in China in 2006, said it would quit the country unless the government relaxed censorship.
On Tuesday, the Chinese government said Google and other foreign companies had to obey the country's laws and traditions.
The same day, Google said it was postponing the launch of two mobile phones in China.
When Google launched google.cn four years ago, it was criticised for agreeing to Beijing's demands to make certain search results off-limits - including those relating to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Tibetan independence or Falun Gong.
China has more internet users, about 350 million, than any other country and provides a lucrative search-engine market worth an estimated $1bn (£618m) last year.
Google holds about a third of the country's search market, with Chinese rival Baidu having more than 60%.

گوگل کی نئی سوشل نیٹورکنگ سائٹ

گوگل نے’ بز‘ نامی ایک سوشل نیٹورکنگ سائٹ کا افتتاح کیا ہے۔

گوگل کی ای میل سروس ’جی میل‘ سے منسلک یہ سماجی نیٹورکنگ سائٹ فیس بُک اور ٹویٹر سے مقابلہ کرے گی۔ فیس بُک کی سائٹ سنہ دو ہزار چار میں شروع کی گئی تھی اور اب اس کو تقریباً چالیس کروڑ افراد استعمال کرتے ہیں اور یہ دنیا کی سب سے بڑی سوشل نیٹورکنگ سآئٹ ہے۔

توقع کی جا رہی ہے کہ جی میل استعمال کرنے والے تو ضرور ’بز‘ کا استعمال کرنا پسند کریں گے۔ اس وقت تقریباً سترہ کروڑ لوگ جی میل استعمال کرتے ہیں۔

صحافیوں کا کہنا ہے کہ یوں معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ اس سوشل نیٹورکنگ سائٹ کا افتتاح کر کے گوگل اس کوشیش میں ہے کہ انٹرنیٹ کی سماجی سرگرمیوں میں وہ فیس بک کا ڈٹ کر مقابلہ کر سکے۔