The Good: Chrome Gets O...

Considering that it hasn’t even been out a week yet, it shouldn’t be too surprising that many users and developers are still getting used to OS X Lion. This includes Google, makers of the popular Chrome web browser. While we previously noted that a version specifically tailored for Lion was in the works, Google said that it may take a little while. But an update today already brings two key features. First, Chrome 14, which was just released in the Dev channel today , removes window scrollbars by default. This mimics the look and feel of other OS X Lion apps, include Apple’s own Safari web browser. These bars now only show up when you’re actually scrolling a page. The second change is much more welcomed — but also frustrating. Two-finger gestures. Yes, as many Chrome users noticed this past week, Lion broke the ability to flip back and forth between web pages with your fingers. That’s because this was previously done on Chrome in OS X Snow Leopard with three-fingers. But now three-finger swipes default to moving between desktops/apps in Lion. In Safari, this backward/forward navigation is now done with two-finger left/right gestures. But that wasn’t an option in the current version of Chrome out there. Now, in Chrome 14, it’s the new default way to go backwards and forwards. Great, right? Yes, but there’s one big problem. Google implemented it backwards. Well, to be fair, Google implemented it the same way it has always been, just switching three-finger input to two-finger. But as everyone is learning, Lion also reverses directions of gestures. In other words, swiping right in Safari with two fingers now navigates to the previous page (with a nifty page slide out). But in Chrome, you need to swipe left to do the same thing (without the nifty effect). If you use both browsers, this is extremely annoying. In some ways, you can’t fault Google for doing it this way though. Again, this is the way it was, and swiping left to go back makes sense in the context of the way the back button arrow points. But with the visual pull-the-page-back effect you get in Safari, the new way seems to make more sense. Again, you’re now moving the content, not the browsing window. The way to fix this for now is to use software like BetterTouchTool

Google Calls Out Rivals...

When it comes to Chrome, Google has long been addicted to speed. And for many tasks on the web today, that speed is related to how fast your JavaScript engine is. Google has long held that their’s is the fastest. But it’s hard to know for sure because there are a few different benchmark suites to test such speeds — and the most popular ones are made by companies with stakes in the game: Apple, Mozilla, and yes, Google. In a post yesterday on their Chromium, it’s pretty clear that Google feels their V8 benchmark suite is the best. In fact, they directly call our their rivals’ suites, noting bugs and saying that they must evolve. And then they go one step further: providing links to versions of the rivals’ suites supposedly perfected by Google! Wow. In the extremely nerdy (and fairly

Google Calls Out Rivals...

When it comes to Chrome, Google has long been addicted to speed. And for many tasks on the web today, that speed is related to how fast your JavaScript engine is. Google has long held that their’s is the fastest. But it’s hard to know for sure because there are a few different benchmark suites to test such speeds — and the most popular ones are made by companies with stakes in the game: Apple, Mozilla, and yes, Google. In a post yesterday on their Chromium, it’s pretty clear that Google feels their V8 benchmark suite is the best. In fact, they directly call our their rivals’ suites, noting bugs and saying that they must evolve. And then they go one step further: providing links to versions of the rivals’ suites supposedly perfected by Google! Wow. In the extremely nerdy (and fairly

Apple’s Safari br...

Apple will include a feature in an upcoming version of its Safari Web browser that will allow consumers to ask websites not to track their online behavior, according to published reports. The tool will reportedly be included in a developer release of the operating system Apple will debut this summer.

Study: Mobile Ad-Tracki...

Apple mobile iOS devices (iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches) are used by 130 million people, but they present a huge blindspot to advertisers. All Apple mobile devices use the Safari browser, as do millions of Apple laptop and desktop computers. Safari blocks third-party cookies by default, which is good for privacy and good for consumers. But it is bad for advertisers who rely on browser cookie tracking to measure the effectiveness of their ads. Marin Software , which offers a way to manage paid search advertising, conducted a study it provided to TechCrunch which shows that 80 percent of the time iOS devices don’t count paid-search conversions (i.e., clicks) because cookie-tracking is turned off. On the Mac, the undercounting occurs 50 percent of the time. All told, when you count all browsers, 38 percent of all paid-search clicks are not being counted. These numbers are for so-called third-party cookies, not first-party cookies which come only from Websites you visit. Third-party cookies are served from various advertising networks or monitoring tools, and they are required for any type of retargeting across multiple Websites. While Marin only looked at paid search ad conversions, the numbers should hold true for display ads as well. Not only are ads not being tracked properly on most Apple devices, but if they were tracked properly, Marin suggests that Apple devices actually perform better. As part of the study, Marin compared actual ad conversions to Windows computers as a baseline. While the perceived conversion rate of search ads is 56 percent lower because of the undercounting, the actual conversion rate is 23 percent higher. Following the maxim that you don’t get paid for what can’t be measured, this blindspot poses a growing challenge to the online advertising industry, and Google in particular. (And you thought Apple was just doing this to protect consumers). The way around the blindspot is to use first-party cookies served from the Websites people visit, or to come up with better ways to measure the performance of online ads. But that’s the topic for another post. CrunchBase Information Marin Software Apple Safari Information provided by CrunchBase