Google Chrome 30% Faster Than Firefox

Back in 2004 when Firefox 1.0 was launched, I loved having a browser that was different to what everyone else was using that was also so much better than the norm.  I consider Firefox now to be a mainstream browser and hence no longer the cool kid on the block.

I’ve been using Google Chrome as my main browser now for around 9 months and not only do I love it, but it’s also in my opinion the best browser on the market.  It’s key selling point for many is it’s speed; according to Computerworld Chrome 3.0 is 30% faster than Firefox.  However, Chrome’s interface speed also sets it apart – I can open multiple Chrome tabs and start working before Firefox has even initialised.

I’m an Apple iPhone 3GS user now after 6 years of Symbian/Windows Mobile based devices.  However, I recently got the chance to play with an HTC Hero and for me Android is looking like it will eventually win the mobile OS battle, at least from a technical and functional superiority perspective, as getting users to ditch their iPhones will be a very hard thing to do.  I can’t wait to get my hands on Google OS to play with which will combine and extend the best bits of Google Android and Chrome.  Given that I spend most of my PC time online, an OS that tightly integrates my favourite browser Google Chrome would be a winner for me.

Microsoft Office Web Apps: First Look

We've been waiting for years to see what Microsoft's answer to Google Docs would be, and now we're getting a look. The Technical Preview of Microsoft Office Web Apps is here. Microsoft had originally planned to roll out the Technical Preview by August, but that timeframe slipped by. You never get a second chance at a first impression though, so better to  delay the introduction than to get off on the wrong foot if there were serious issues with the software.

Office Web Apps merges key elements of the Microsoft Office productivity suite into the cloud. The menu of applications available in Office Web Apps mirrors the applications found in the Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 suite: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. You won't find applications like Access or Outlook here.

Some aspects of Office Web Apps are not yet available during the Technical Preview. This is a pre-release version of the software and Microsoft is still testing, gathering feedback, and making course corrections so that the end result is a success. The most obvious missing component is OneNote, which has no functionality in the preview. Word is also limited to viewing files at this time.

Office Web Apps takes the familiarity of the Microsoft Office applications users are used to and provides virtually the same experience online.

The backbone of Office Web Apps is Windows Live SkyDrive, Microsoft's free online storage offering. In order for the documents and presentations created in Office Web Apps to be available to you from anywhere in the world, or available to share with others, those files need to be stored where they can be accessed from anywhere. SkyDrive lets you store your data in the "Cloud" so it can be accessed from anywhere you can connect to the Internet.

There are two things that immediately catch my attention. One is the ability to bounce seamlessly from the Office Web App software to its desktop equivalent and back again. The other is the continuity of experience- or fidelity as Microsoft refers to it- between the traditional Microsoft Office suite applications and their web-based Office Web App peers.

You don't need to have Microsoft Office installed locally to use Office Web Apps, but if you do you can open files from SkyDrive in the local software and save them back to the Skydrive. The Office Web Apps are robust, however they lack some of the features and functionality of their desktop counterparts. Within the Office Web App you have one-click access to open the file in the desktop version of the program instead.

The other impressive thing is how much the Office Web App versions mimic the look and feel of the desktop versions. Some may say that is too complex or cluttered. I would say its familiar. Regardless of your feeling about the functionality of Microsoft Office products, providing the same experience--including the Ribbon interface--provides a familiar environment with little or no learning curve.

Office Web Apps supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari web browsers. That doesn't necessarily mean that you can't use Office Web Apps from Chrome or Opera, but it does mean that Microsoft has not invested the time and effort to make sure that the ‘fidelity' of the Office software is maintained in those browsers. Basically, you can give it a shot, but Microsoft isn't making any promises about if, or how well, it will work.

At first blush, the online suite looks fairly impressive. I realize Google Docs has been delivering similar functionality for a while now. There is nothing groundbreaking about delivering document, spreadsheet, and presentation software over the Web.

However, Google Docs is not Microsoft Office. Office Web Apps doesn't just deliver the functionality of creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in the cloud--it extends the Microsoft Office experience that we are all familiar with in a way that Google has yet to fully emulate. When we last compared Office to Google Docs, Microsoft's lack of a robust Web-based solution led to a tie between the two. Next time, things may be different.

Google Introduces Fast Flip

Google is developing a product called Fast Flip that aims to make it simpler and faster to browse through news articles on the Web, a process that the company finds is cumbersome and discourages people from reading more online.

Fast Flip was expected to go live late Monday at the Google Labs Web site, where the company features early stage product prototypes. As such, Fast Flip could change significantly, become temporarily unavailable or even disappear without notice.

Fast Flip lets readers glance at pages and browse through them quickly without having to wait for multiple page elements to load, which can significantly slow the rendering of articles, especially if they have multimedia content, according to Google.

The idea is to try to replicate online the ease with which people flip through the pages of print magazines and newspapers in the offline world. This could motivate people to read more online, which Google argues will help publishers attract more readers and increase their revenue.

However, when users click on a Fast Flip link, they will be taken to the corresponding publisher's Web site, where the Google technology will not be on hand to display the page more quickly.

People who try out Fast Flip will find articles from 36 publishers, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, Salon and Newsweek, as well as contextually relevant ads. For now, Fast Flip will only feature content from the publishers Google has been working with to develop the technology, but it plans to add more in the future.

Fast Flip will also feature a search engine and let users share content. Based on their reading choices, users will see suggestions for other articles they might find interesting.

Change Browsing Habits?

Richard Gingras, CEO of the Salon Media Group, expects Fast Flip to shed light on how user behavior might change if people can browse through online material more quickly.

"On the Web you can go page to page, but it takes five to 10 seconds between pages, so it's not as 'browseable' an experience as with print, where you flip through and scan a lot of things very quickly," he said.

"This is one experiment, and it'll be interesting to see what we learn," he added.

Gingras believes that Fast Flip will not only lead people to read more online, but also add a higher degree of serendipity to their experience through the unexpected discovery of interesting articles they didn't initially set out to find.

This element of serendipity is one that Google has been interested in adding to Google News, according to Gingras, who before becoming Salon CEO was an independent adviser to Google about news and media from late 2007 until late 2008.

Salon also has its own initiatives to make it easier for its readers to find more of its articles. The publication will soon start to beta test a Web site redesign focused partly on organizing content by topics, so readers can scan articles about the same subject.

"Any publisher these days has to be looking at how to create interesting units of content and facilitate the use and access of that content in as many ways as the audience is willing to consume them," Gingras said.

Google: Work in Progress

At this point, Google isn't making any tools available for external developers to integrate Fast Flip with their Web sites and applications.

"Launching Google Fast Flip in Labs lets us learn from our users and our publishing partners so we can keep exploring ways to display news and help publishers make more money from their content," a spokesman for Google said via e-mail.

"We know that Google Fast Flip isn't perfect, and there's a chance it may never become a full-blown Google product. But we think there are some interesting ideas behind it," he added.

In addition to working on regular PC browsers, the Fast Flip Web site adapts itself when reached from iPhone and Android-based mobile devices, letting users flip pages via a touch-screen interface. Google was due to unveil Fast Flip at the TechCrunch 50 Conference in San Francisco.