Google Chrome 28 Is Out: Rich Notifications For Apps, Extensions

An anonymous reader writes "Google today released Chrome version 28 for Windows and Mac. The new version features a notification center, although it's only available on Windows (in addition to Chrome OS of course). You can update to the latest release now using the browser's built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome. This is also the first release of Chrome that ships with Blink instead of WebKit. You can check the Blink ID yourself tag by navigating to chrome://version/."

Comments

Well that explains why the killed google Reader

[rsilvergun]

and a bunch of other stuff. They were integrating it into Chrome.

Re:Well that explains why the killed google Reader

[Anonymous Coward]

Dropping standards based technologies in favor of tightly integrated proprietary services seems to be popular lately, so I guess this is not surprising.

Re:Well that explains why the killed google Reader

[peragrin]

I wish they would stop making it so easy to integrate stuff into chrome.

I was testing software packages for work and I spent 30 minutes removing self installing tool bars from chrome. I would remove one extension but by the time I got to remove the second one it would install the first one again.

I don't want 4 extension 3, toolbars, 2 home page settings, each with the ability to install software by themselves.

Re:Well that explains why the killed google Reader

[datavirtue]

What is "notifications?" There is no explanation for such a vague term.

Re:Well that explains why the killed google Reader

[colfer]

And the extension webstore hosts malware. I have reported "Facebook Adblock" several times and it is still there, months later. The negative comments keep getting pushed down by cheerleaders, and the older reviews just drop off the list.

Re:Well that explains why the killed google Reader

[Anonymous Coward]

This one?

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/facebook-adblock/pkoaaaiiaalegemhdeadohejihbdfbho

Or this one?

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/facebook-adblock/lfpacabphcagfehdgnigmfnbjdampbaa

Because they both have the same name, and one of them has been removed. I found the removed one by googling '"facebook adblock" malware' (without single quotes). One person reported that the latter was identified as malware, but that could be a false positive due to it sharing the same name as the previous extension, which was malware.

Re:Well that explains why the killed google Reader

[BonzaiThePenguin]

Notifications is a new API being added to the HTML5 spec, since every operating system seems to use a global notification system now.

Re:Well that explains why the killed google Reader

[kav2k]

Wrong. Since I follow the situation closely, let me explain.

The HTML5 Web Notifications API is in Chrome since forever under webKitNotifications.

The first draft spec of Notifications API included both icon-and-text simplistic notifications, and HTML notifications which were in fact just tiny windows that popped up.
Chrome implemented both, extension authors happily started using it.

Next, W3C drops HTML notifications from the draft. Chrome then drops it from the web context, but keeps it for extensions: they didn't want to suddenly break legacy apps, I guess. They didn't even mark it as deprecated until not long ago.

Fast forward a few releases. Chrome wants its own notifications center, and drafts a new Rich Notifications API. Long experimental, this finally hit Stable.

However.. Despite being touted as a replacement for HTML notifications, those don't come even close to customization possibilities of an arbitrary HTML page, with its own code running. And Google decided to make a hard switch: a browser version has either Rich or HTML notifications enabled. So, if the feature hit you, your old notifications keel over and die immediately.

But that's not the worst problem here. The worst problem is sudden fragmentation. Windows and Chrome OS have the new Rich notifications and do not have HTML ones anymore. OS X and Linux do not have Rich notifications but support HTML ones. See the problem? And despite saying that it will come to other platforms "soon" this isn't in Beta yet for sure, and possibly not even in the Dev branch, but don't quote me on that. So to even maintain both systems I now need two OSes.

Re:Well that explains why the killed google Reader

[hobarrera]

Dropping standards based technologies in favor of tightly integrated proprietary services seems to be popular lately, so I guess this is not surprising.

Not really. It's been popular with companies that have enough users to lock them in for at least 15 years.
It's just a matter of google not having enough users to do it before 2013. To vendor-lockin, you need a nice market share first.

A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to try it. Is there a build somewhere of Chrome that doesn't talk to Google?

Re:A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound kind of needlessly paranoid, but you can always look for a build of Chromium, which is the open source version of Chrome.

Re:A build without google communication

[93 Escort Wagon]

He "sounds needlessly paranoid"? That's kind of an odd thing to say, given that you posted anonymously. Is your name Sergey or Larry, perchance?

Re:A build without google communication

[DavidRawling]

Oh sure, that'll be the same build that finally figures out that some organisations have web servers with names that don't end in .com.

It's woefully consistent - type a server name that is a "recognised external" URL (so something ending in .com, .co.uk, .fr, etc) and it'll go straight to the site. Type an internal server name (either a plain server name or an internal DNS name) and it will insist on searching Google, because quite obviously the user DIDN'T want localsite or site.network.internal after all. No if you want an internal server, you'll need to get the users to type in the full URL including protocol (because then the same keystrokes that were obviously wrong are suddenly obviously right).

Couple that with the new "requirement" for Chrome if you want to download the Google Talk [wait no it's Hangouts now] on the desktop (they can pry the desktop Talk client from my cold dead fingers) and the continual forcing of Google+ to view an image in a chat, it's clear Google has already turned into Microsoft V2 and is working on digging in deeper. (Hangouts? Seriously? No, it's not a "hangout" when I send an IM to my son to put the damn garbage out!)

Re:A build without google communication

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

I don't think there is anything done on the web that Google isn't aware of these days so you may as well just make it easier for them.

Re: A build without google communication

[chill]

Oh man do hangouts suck. With Talk on my phone I could tell if people were online or not. Hangouts doesn't indicate (on Android).

They also take 5-10 seconds to activate. Like the dam thing isn't * phoning * home, it is composing a letter long hand.

Re:A build without google communication

[RobertM1968]

Why not just force load it in incognito mode? And I'd rather Chrome talk to Google than IE talking to MS.

Re:A build without google communication

[swillden]

It's woefully consistent - type a server name that is a "recognised external" URL (so something ending in .com, .co.uk, .fr, etc) and it'll go straight to the site. Type an internal server name (either a plain server name or an internal DNS name) and it will insist on searching Google, because quite obviously the user DIDN'T want localsite or site.network.internal after all.

When you type the hostname you should see a box pop down below the location bar that has two lines with what you've typed. One has a "page" icon and one has a magnifying glass. The former will try to use the text as a URL, the later will search for it using your default search engine. If you hit enter, whichever one of those lines is on top will be the action taken. Chrome tries to guess which one you most likely want using some heuristics, which in the case of abbreviated internal names general get the wrong answer, so the search line will be on top. If you hit the down arrow, though, it'll highlight the one with the page icon and hitting enter then will interpret your text as a hostname.

Another tip: If there are some hosts that you go to frequently, add them to your list of custom search engines and give them nice shortcuts. For example, I often use "teams.corp.google.com" (Google's internal white pages) to look people up. I could type "teams" and rely on default DNS suffixing to expand that out, but then I run into the exact problem you mention, requiring me to type "teams" then hit the down arrow, then return. Instead, I added it as a custom search engine with the shortcut 't'. So I just hit 't' then space then enter, and I'm there. In that case, teams actually is a search engine, so I can also type 't', then a name then enter, and it'll do a search. But I use the same thing for some internal hosts I hit frequently that aren't search engines.

Re:A build without google communication

[datavirtue]

Too complicated for a company who's success is based on reading people's minds.

Re:A build without google communication

[swillden]

Too complicated for a company who's success is based on reading people's minds.

It's only complicated for the power users. For most people -- who don't type hostnames and rely on DNS automatic domain suffixing to turn them into the correct URL -- the heuristics do an excellent job of doing the right thing... and when they get it wrong the generally fail on the side of searching, which then lets the search engine pick up the slack, because people usually find that the top result is the URL they were trying to type.

It think it works really well for the common case, and reasonably well for the uncommon case.

Re:A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just paranoid, delusional as well.

Google today released Chrome version 28 for Windows and Mac.

Why bother worrying about a web browser when you're running an OS that's pre-compromised?

Re:A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, one has to "look for" it, since they keep it with the "Beware of the Leopard" sign (and keep changing the room in the basement to different buildings, though they haven't moved it last I looked).

Re:A build without google communication

[t0y]

You'll be happy to know that google talk doesn't work on windows 8.1.

Re:A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather Chrome talk to Google than IE talking to MS.

Why?

Re:A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound kind of needlessly paranoid

Yet there are a myriad of up-modded comments that champion the anti-Microsoft stance of "the xbox one gives them a camera and microphone in your home" and its apparently perfectly rational and reasonable to assume that they want to see and hear you playing games and that nobody would ever be able to know if they are doing it or not. Seriously for a bunch of "nerds" most people around here are complete idiots. I'm sure this will get modded down but I would be curious to know how many people on here actually do believe it, perhaps its a good idea for a poll.

Re:A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only complicated for the power users.

So in other words it punishes people for being competent.

Re:A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

Add a forward slash to the end of anything in the URL bar to force it to be interpreted as a hostname.

Re:A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

Type an internal server name, and it'll search google, but will ask you whether you actually meant the internal server. After saying you do, going there becomes the default action. To bypass the one-time Google search, you need to type a final slash (eg: isis/, rather than isis) -- but not the whole protocol.

Re: A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the other one talks directly with nsa

Re:A build without google communication

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume this troll is posting from NSA_KEY Windows!

Re:A build without google communication

[swillden]

It's only complicated for the power users.

So in other words it punishes people for being competent.

That's one way to view it. Another is that choices have to be made, and Google chooses to optimize for the many rather than the few.

Re:A build without google communication

[hobarrera]

You mean, Chromium?
Yeah, it in almost every's OS repositories (save for windows; but you can just download it from somewhere).

Re:A build without google communication

[hobarrera]

Well, "internal" isn't a valid TLD, why would a browser guess that you have a local TLD named like that?
Omibar for firefox exhibits the exact same behaviour. Type something without a valid TLD into the search/address bar, and it assumes it's not a URL. Quite predictable.

Re: A build without google communication

[hobarrera]

Xabber is your friend. Honestly.

Also, if you use an XMPP client to google's server, non-google XMPP users can still see you online.

Blink

[fermion]

You can check the Blink ID yourself tag by navigating to chrome://version/."

I desperately was sorry when the blink tag lost prominence. I hope it once again gets it's due respect. I also look forward to seeing the richer data sent to google from my machine due to facilitate the richer notification center.

Re:Blink

[icebike]

I desperately was sorry when the blink tag lost prominence. I hope it once again gets it's due respect.

Ok, I see said blink id, but even google search finds no ready answer to what the hell it is/means?

Help me out here...

Re: Blink

[Anonymous Coward]

It's your own personal "barcode" so you can be identified by Google. Sure, it "only lets them send you notifications" and would never be used as a tracking device.

28?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, every time there's a new version of Firefox out, the idiots come out of the woodwork to cry about the version number. Why isn't this the case for Chrome?

Re:28?

[hedwards]

Because Google always used this numbering system, and Mozilla changed it for inexplicable reasons. What's more, I don't think that version number changes have the same effect on killing extensions that it does on Firefox.

Re:28?

[Anonymous Coward]

I admit that way back in the days of Firefox 3.x, every update caused huge problems with addons, but this hasn't been the case for a long time now. Very rarely do updates cause problems with addons now. At least the addons I use, anyways.

Re:28?

[hairyfeet]

Well i think it was more about how moz used the FOSS method of versioning which in all honesty? Kinda made more sense. You had full number changes like 4 to 5 for major releases and the whole "dot odd is testing, dot even is stable" which made it easy at a glance to see whether you were running bleeding edge or stable, whereas with Chrome any changes they do warrant a full version number which at this rate they will be up to triple digit release numbers in no time.

But you are right that the Chromium based really didn't seem to use the numbers so the extensions didn't get shit on every time you turned around, I've been using Comodo Dragon since Version 2 and its now up to 27.2 and none of my extensions or themes have ever broke because of updates whereas the last year I was using FF it seemed like every time i turned around one of my extensions or themes was getting broken by an update,VERY irritating.

Re: 28?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record, they're dropping support for extensions using HTML desktop notifications in this version, which made their new "rich" notifications look old and crotchety. A number of extensions, including a couple of my own, lost a massive amount of functionality overnight because of this.

Re:28?

[rubycodez]

none of the version number changes in chrome has broken anything for me. chrome doesn't start and pop up a box, run checks for minutes, and then saying half my plugins are no longer supported.

Re:28?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason it doesn't hurt anymore is the extension makers just blanket included the next 10 versions. The down side to this is that they have no real clue if it'll actually work with the next 10 versions.

Re:28?

[Elbart]

That's just not true.

Re:28?

[nine-times]

For one thing, Chrome doesn't really advertise new versions at all. I'm suprised to even see it noted that we're at v28. My Chrome is running Version 28 already, but if you had asked me what version I was running, I would have guessed 26.

In each upgrade, nothing breaks. There are almost no visual changes. You might just notice something new and go, "When did that happen?"

Re:28?

[DamageLabs]

Obviously a new user.

Things have been breaking apart since the early twenties versions constantly. And rarely for the better.

Rich?

[Tablizer]

Okay, but how do those of us in the middle class get notifications?

Re:Rich?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't. It's all just a facade. The upper class will amass more and more notifications over their lifetime, and when they die, their subclasses will inherit them.

Have they dropped the -webkit- CSS prefixes yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every other browser has prefixless CSS transforms now.

Rich notifications

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

So some apps can bribe their way to getting notified first, some kind of premium notification system that makes Google rich then?

Another new feature of Chrome 28

[Anonymous Coward]

Error: Package: google-chrome-stable-28.0.1500.71-209842.x86_64 (google-chrome)
                      Requires: libstdc++.so.6(GLIBCXX_3.4.15)(64bit)

Guess that offer to work out a compatibility package with Red Hat never materialized? Way to Scroogle your loyal user base, Google. Those of us with Linux in the enterprise thank you and will not keep you in mind the next time we're looking at search appliances.

Re:Another new feature of Chrome 28

[Elbart]

No idea if that is the reason for that error, but Google dropped support for RHEL6 with Chrome 28.

Re:Another new feature of Chrome 28

[kthreadd]

And a couple of other distributions as well, including Debian 6 and Ubuntu 10.04. Use Firefox or Chromium instead if your distributions supports it.

64-bit official builds?

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the bloat they're cramming in, they need to start making 64-bit Chrome for Windows. If they can't keep the browser down to what it should be, then they need to accommodate ridiculous memory footprints.

Re:64-bit official builds?

[Cinder6]

It's not 64-bit on Windows? I'm surprised; it is on the Mac (according to Activity Monitor).

Re:64-bit official builds?

[kthreadd]

64 bit is often just a recompile away on Mac and Linux. Windows is a very different beast. A lot of Windows software does not support 64 bit, or offers only experimental support for it.

That's a lot of versions

[Horshu]

They'd be well served to either adopt point releases (unless they already to, in which case, DAMN!) or use month/year as the version.

--disable-new-menu-style no longer works

[dsinc]

Chrome 29 ignores the --disable-new-menu-style switch. Another strange choice made by the devs (remember the useless outcry when they cancelled the option to hide the download shelf?)...

Re: --disable-new-menu-style no longer works

[Nukky Cisbu]

I now have to scroll to see all my bookmarks, thanks to the idiotic double-spacing.

Much as I otherwise like Chrome, it's back to Firefox for me. It's a bad decision to sacrifice ergonomics for ... well, whatever it was that motivated this dumb decision.

Re: --disable-new-menu-style no longer works

[flimflammer]

I don't get why this isn't just a goddamn option. I really hate the tablet spacing crap.

Re: --disable-new-menu-style no longer works

[gnurfed]

Google says they did the extra padding to create a "unified experience" for all. Meaning us normal users get to suffer because we somehow need to have the same interface as people using tablets. Like you, I'm going back to Firefox as my primary browser, or Waterfox to be exact.

Re: --disable-new-menu-style no longer works

[pantaril]

I also recently switched back from google-chrome to firefox. In my case, there were two reasons:
- google-chrome memory consumption was enormous. It also grow over time and with the number of opened tabs so i had to restart my browser periodicaly otherwise it slowed to crawl before long.
- google-chrome is horrible at solving user-reported bugs. Developers usualy don't even ackowledge them or comment on them. For example this bug is 2 years old, affect great number of users, is easy to fix but it's still unconfirmed.

Re: --disable-new-menu-style no longer works

[DamageLabs]

There are even older bugs. Like the runaway GDI usage.

But the unified UI experience tops the telemetry deduced decision making list of moronic google employees.

Re: --disable-new-menu-style no longer works

[Billly Gates]

Wow I thought I heard this before ... like when 9-11 timeframe a decade ago that another popular browser had unique CSS features that only it had to provide a better experience over that old obsolete Netscape engine.

The same developers who cry foul are busy making sure their mobile sites only work with -webkit and break with everything else but IE 6 sucks because it is sooo proprietary.

Re: --disable-new-menu-style no longer works

[Billly Gates]

Many here on slashdot will still bash Firefox for being bloated while typing the comment in Chrome.

Re: --disable-new-menu-style no longer works

[Anonymous Coward]

I have yet to hear a good explanation how it is better for people to have to scroll to read bookmarks. With all of today's technology, they can't make it an option? WTF

v28 on Linux Isn't Blinking

[Zamphatta]

Sure v28 is built on Blink? I just put chrome://version/ in my address bar, and it shows my UA string as -- Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/28.0.1500.71 Safari/537.36

Re:v28 on Linux Isn't Blinking

[NetRanger]

Same here on 28.0.1500.71 (Official Build 209842) beta.

And it's STILL 32-bit. Really Google?!?

Re:v28 on Linux Isn't Blinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it is. The form of UA string did not change with Blink. Look at the DEPS file in the sources for proof.

Re:v28 on Linux Isn't Blinking

[Anonymous Coward]

The UA string is a terrible mess. Look above that:
Blink 537.36 (@153687)

User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS x86_64 4319.16.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/29.0.1547.16 Safari/537.36

Re:v28 on Linux Isn't Blinking

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't want 64 bit, tough boy, believe me.

Re:v28 on Linux Isn't Blinking

[cr_nucleus]

Sure v28 is built on Blink? I just put chrome://version/ in my address bar, and it shows my UA string as -- Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/28.0.1500.71 Safari/537.36

Did you notice there's also Mozilla and Safari mentioned there ?

Re:v28 on Linux Isn't Blinking

[jones_supa]

Sure v28 is built on Blink? I just put chrome://version/ in my address bar, and it shows my UA string as -- Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/28.0.1500.71 Safari/537.36

What the hell? Mozilla, AppleWebKit, KHTML, Gecko, Chrome, Safari... all in the same user agent string. That is some garbage. :)

Re:v28 on Linux Isn't Blinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you notice there's also Mozilla and Safari mentioned there ?

You are an imbecile.

Re:v28 on Linux Isn't Blinking

[Kalriath]

No it's not.

Mozilla - this is the start of every UA string. Even Internet Explorer's.
AppleWebKit - this is the rendering engine previously used, likely still mentioned for compatibility.
KHTML - WebKit is a fork of KHTML, so this indicates that anything that works for Konqueror will probably work for WebKit.
Gecko - KHTML was designed to render similarly to Gecko, this basically just tells servers "if you haven't got anything for me, anything for Gecko is OK".
Chrome - this is the browser.
Safari - this is the reference WebKit version, likely included to tell servers that if they don't support Chrome then just treat the browser like Safari.

This is creepy

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF ARE RICH NOTIFICATIONS??

If you don't know shut up. If you can't formulate clear explanations shut up. Someone please tell me what "richer notifications" are supposed to be.

Re:This is creepy

[Sockatume]

"Rich" in a UI context typically means carrying additional information that can be specified by the notification source, as opposed to simply indicating that a notification is available. It's a pretty widespread usage although once again someone has fallen into the cognitive trap of meeting a new term and deciding it's made up gibberish, because clearly, AC, you know all the real words ever and what they all mean.

who is speed king?

[noh8rz10]

the big question is, how does chrome 28 compare to safari in mavericks? we know that mavericks safari is faster than chrome 27, and it sounds like the new chrome just adds bloat so it's not any faster. my gut says safari still stays on top, but I await confirmation.

"You have new ads"

[Animats]

You just know that's what it is for.

Can you turn off the channel to Google?

I hope this explanation is reasonably clear

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the resource I viewed. It seems that notifications will now allow users to interact with the process spawning the notification in a predefined manner. For example picking up a call, or some other action an app can perform. I believe this is more similar to android notifications in jellybean. I don't know for sure though... I don't use smartphones because I find them too emasculating.

Practically speaking, for me using my chromebook, when I get a call on google voice, the notification will allow me to pick up the call from the notification bubble itself by clicking a button. At present when I get a notification about an incoming call, the only action I can perform is to dismiss the notification, or switch focus to the process responsible for sending the notification. Also you can pile notifications together into a list for the cases in which that is useful, and then it adds some options for using images as well. There are also settings for notification priority and persistence as well as a "notification center" that allows users to manage their notifications.

  apparently though some functionality is being removed along with this. Its not something I know anything about personally though.

webkit not entirely gone?

[ubiquitin]

Not 100% sure this is WebKit-free. On MacOSX there's still a reference to webkit in the UserAgent string as: "AppleWebKit" anyway.

Re:webkit not entirely gone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably for compatibility reasons, user agents are used by some websites.

Sometimes It Matters

[Anonymous Coward]

If the updater is running as a separate background service with higher permissions than the browser, is it really a built-in silent updater or another program that was bundled with Chrome's installer?

Google Chrome - a new EMACS?

[Skinny Rav]

Google Chrome shapes into a really nice OS, it just lacks a decent browser.

Re:Google Chrome - a new EMACS?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is kind of the case for all browsers. Or any app that has a environment built in, be it lisp (Emacs), JS (browsers) or Lua (many video games).

Blink

[Arancaytar]

Yeah, I think I'm going to switch to Firefox again. The Doctor warned us about this rendering engine in pretty strong words.

versions

[sunami]

Are we making fun of Chrome for having so many releases, or is that still just Firefox? I haven't kept up with it.

Version Bloat!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon! I just upgraded to Chrome 23!! Fuck this shit. I'm waiting another month for version 37!!!

double spacing back!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck, I hate the double spacing! and now its back!
No way to do anything about it.. its cracy.