Google Chrome extensions are finally here !
If you like living on the cutting edge (like me), you’ll already be running the latest developer builds of Google Chrome. Something that’s been lacking in Chrome is the ability to extend the browser’s default functionality via extensions. Good news – Extensions are here!
Whilst the offerings right now available @ http://www.chromeextensions.org/ aren’t exactly earth shattering, this will only grow over time as more developers get on board.
The platform itself works quite well, with extensions installed seamlessly with no browser restarts required. The extensions interface allows easy control over your installed plugins – enable, disable and uninstall.
The good news is (so far) extensions don’t seem to have a negative effect on Chrome’s performance.
More @ Lifehacker
Safari 4 beta released, ads a bunch of new features we’ve seen before
Today we’ve received yet another browser update, this time it’s not IE, Firefox or even Chrome, but rather Apple’s Safari. It’s currently still in beta, but arrives with a bunch of new features appears to be quite stable.
New Features
Top Sites – Not unlike Opera’s home screen, Safari 4 offers a 3D wall of your most commonly used sites. This view can be customized to contain 6, 16 or 24 thumbnails. Users can also pin a site to ensure it remains in the Top Sites view.
Tabs – While tabs are not new to Safari, the way they’re handled is. They’ve now got the chrome-esc above the address bar look. Even better they’ve also picked up the ability to drag tabs from one Safari window to another. This is a great feature especially when viewing 2 windows side by side in Windows 7. As normal these days, tabs can be re-ordered.
Before 
After
Coverflow History – Borrowing from iTunes, Safari now uses the Coverflow to Safari’s history. This provides a preview of the website in your history, so if your a heavy browser, finding a site you’ve been to in the past should be all that much easier.
Unfortunately the Bookmarks don’t go and grab a thumbnail of the site, this should be fixed before the final version.
Full page zooming – Another feature that’s been around in IE since version 7, Safari have added zoom not only to the text, but to the full page. This means the layout isn’t broken when zooming.
Overall there are some changes in Safari 4, but pay no attention to Apple’s claimed 150 features. What they call a feature is mostly fixing things and borrowing features from the existing browsers.
There’s a full list of the “new” features, over at Apple.com. Safari 4 beta is available for Mac or Windows.
Opera 9.5 available now
Supporting a slick new interface Opera 9.5 has an number of new features..
- More than 2x faster than Opera 9.2 in rendering JavaScript and HTML
- Faster handling of third party plug-ins
- Much faster start up time
- Superior support for Web standards (css3, html5 +more)
For all the updates check out the full list.
Overall I’m most impressed by the new tab bar (above) and the new Speed Dial interface when creating a new tab. This lets you create shortcuts to your most common links, so it makes sense that when your opening a new tab, there’s a good chance you could be visiting one of your commonly-used sites. Once setup, simply click the auto generated thumbnail for the site you wish to visit, then the desired site opens in the active tab.
Currently I had created a ‘commonly used links’ site that was my default home page, for this very reason. I actually like Opera’s interpretation of this idea, it allows for very quick updates of these links. Speed improvements are noticeable, especially in comparison to IE or Firefox.
More @ Opera