Google Data » Sarah Nahm

Improving finger dexterity for faster web browsing

Sarah Nahm — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:00:00 +0000

Three weeks ago, we released a new stable build of Chrome which featured our biggest speed improvements to date—a 66 percent lift in JavaScript performance on the V8 benchmark suite.

However, the Chrome browser can only process data as quickly as users can tell it how to do so—i.e., type. In 1946, Stella Pajunas-Garnand set a world record by typing at a blistering 216 words per minute. Once we learned that the average Internet user ambles in at 33 words per minute—just 15.2778 percent of the existing milestone—we decided to conduct our own research into the state of finger speed and performance.

Browsing the web involves two key finger movements: the up-and-down motion of a finger pressing a key and the back-and-forth movement of a finger scrolling the wheel of a mouse. To reach a standard measurement for speed and performance, we combined eight key metrics from both movements to produce the Finger Dexterity Index (FDI), which we’ve mapped below against the V8 Benchmark:

As you can see, there have been relatively few advances in finger dexterity since Chrome’s launch, which is why we’re excited to bring you Chromercise, a new exercise regimen for your hands and fingers. Some existing finger exercise programs focus on upgrading your digits’ cardiovascular strength and musculature; others focus on dexterity. Chromercise’s unique blend of aerobic motion and rhythmic accompaniment covers all of the above while simultaneously tightening and toning your fingers’ actual appearance.

A few words of caution: be sure to stretch before and after your Chromercise workout, and only attempt the complex moves at the end of the workout video after mastering the core movements from the first half. In fact, we strongly encourage finger sweatbands throughout your workout for your comfort and the safety of those around you. And as with any fitness program, don’t forget to consult your physician before committing to a rigorous Chromercise regimen.

To learn more visit Chromercise.com today.

Posted by Chris Wright, certified Chromercise Instructor

60 million tabs towards good causes

Sarah Nahm — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:00:00 +0000

In 2010, the Chrome community has joined us in moments of fun, invention, exploration, and now, giving. Last week, we invited Chrome’s users worldwide to “donate” their opened tabs in Chrome to drive a charitable gift of one million dollars. We on the Chrome team were deeply impressed with the support and participation and now we’re happy to share the results with you.

The Chrome community responded with staggering enthusiasm and, acting together, raised 60,599,541 tabs for charity.

Each Chrome user chose the causes their tabs would support, which determined how we allocated our one million dollar donation. Accordingly, we’re excited to make the following donations on behalf of the Chrome community:

$245,278 toward planting trees in the Atlantic Forest, one of the world’s endangered tropical forests.
$232,791 toward providing clean water, by building freshwater wells for communities in developing nations.
$112,078 toward building shelter, to be constructed by volunteers for impoverished families in Latin America.
$267,336 toward administering vaccinations against meningitis to combat outbreaks in Africa.
$142,518 toward publishing books by local writers and illustrators, which will be created and donated to schools and libraries across Asia and Africa.

We’ll be making the donations at year-end, and our partner charities are already looking towards applying the funds from Chrome for a Cause in 2011. Read more about how your donation will be applied specifically by visiting our partners’ websites:

We're glad to connect Chrome users with these important causes all around the world -- so much so that we’re already thinking of more Chrome for a Cause projects for the future!

Feel free to keep your extension installed if you’d like to hear about future opportunities to work together with the Chrome community for a good cause. We’ll post all the details about how to participate on the Chrome blog, so make sure you check in when you hear about new opportunities.

Thanks for joining us in this endeavor. Happy Holidays!

Posted by Sarah Nahm, Product Marketing Manager

Browse for a good cause

Sarah Nahm — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Whether it’s bug fixes to the Chromium open source project, dazzling apps and extensions arriving daily in our Web Store, or boundary-pushing Chrome experiments -- the Chrome community never fails to inspire us with their awesomeness.

This holiday, we wanted to enable the Chrome community to work together for a good cause. Starting today, we invite you to support five worthy causes by counting and “donating” the tabs you open in Chrome.

Everyone’s total tabs will determine a charitable donation made on behalf of the Chrome community, up to one million dollars. Here's what your tabs can do:

10 tabs = 1 tree planted
10 tabs = 1 book published and donated
25 tabs = 1 vaccination treatment provided
100 tabs = 1 square foot of shelter built
200 tabs = 1 person's clean water for a year

To find out more about this effort and the organizations we're partnering with, visit google.com/chrome/intl/en/p/cause/.

Want to participate?

Get the Chrome for a Cause extension
Browse the web with Chrome between December 15 - 19
At the end of each day, you’ll be prompted to click on the extension to submit your tabs
Choose which charity you’d like to support with that day’s tabs -- you can always support the same charity, or pick a different one each day

Next week, we’ll be sharing the details of the good deeds you’ve enacted. In the meantime, browse away!

Posted by Sarah Nahm, Product Marketing Manager

Added on December 15, 2010:

In order to prevent hackers, spammers and bots from manipulating the extension, and to maintain the integrity of the campaign, we ask that users login with their Google account before submitting their tabs. As part of this step, the account log-in process requires connecting to one of Google's APIs to connect with your account. The Google Contacts API is the lightest of all Google APIs and grants the least permissions. Though we use the Contacts API to verify your account we do not use any of your Contacts data in the Chrome for a Cause promotion.

Rest assured, Google's not going to spam your contact list or send you a single email about this.

How to upgrade your browser (and 50 other things you might want to teach your parents)

Sarah Nahm — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:30:00 +0000

The other day I told my parents about a recent Chrome experiment, but the site wouldn't load for them: turns out they were still using a browser released over nine years ago and weren’t sure how to update it. I ended up installing Chrome for them, as it stays up-to-date automatically (read: it's less work for me!).

For those of you who also have family members suffering from outdated browser issues, I’ve created a video tutorial that you can share with them so that they can walk through a few quick steps to ensure that they have the latest browser:

This video is one in a series of basic how-to videos that a handful of us at Google have put together at TeachParentsTech.org, a place where “kids” of any age can send tutorials to their moms, dads, uncles, and whomever they like. Send someone a tech support care package of your own!

Posted by Sean Liu, Associate Product Manager on the Google Apps team

Keep calm and carry on: Chrome notebook

Sarah Nahm — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:22:00 +0000

At our Chrome event on Tuesday, we showed how Chrome notebooks can make computing simpler.

Thanks to the cloud, your Chrome notebook might be how you do everything, but losing it means you lose nothing. No matter what crazy things happen to your laptop, your work stays safe online. Check out our demonstration video below.

Posted by Glen Murphy, UX Designer

100 Chrome Experiments and counting!

Sarah Nahm — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:30:00 +0000

Last year we launched Chrome Experiments, a website showcasing innovative web experiments built with open standards like JavaScript and HTML5. Today we’re pleased to announce that the site now points to 100 experiments -- each one made, hosted, and submitted by programmers from around the world.

Since the site launched just 18 months ago, browsers have been improving at a rapid pace, and the latest experiments have taken advantage of that. A big step forward has been the widespread adoption and support of HTML5, which is becoming standard in all modern browsers. New functionality like the video and canvas tags have made for some inspiring work. It’s hard to pick our favorites, but a few innovative submissions include Destructive Video, SketchPad, and Harmony.

If you haven’t checked out Chrome Experiments recently, do take some time to explore the work of these talented artists/programmers in Google Chrome or any modern browser. Of course, if you’re a programmer yourself, we’d love to see your work -- just click the Submit button at the top of the site.

Thanks to everyone who has helped spread awareness of what browsers can do. We can’t wait to see what the future holds, and we’ll see you again at 200.

Posted by Aaron Koblin and Valdean Klump, Google Creative Lab

Tip: Going Undercover

Sarah Nahm — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:17:00 +0000

Sometimes you don't want to leave traces on your computer of some site you visit. Google Chrome's incognito windows are made just for this. Visit a website in an incognito window, and when you close the window, the browser has no record of you having been there.

Of course, you probably knew that. What you might not have known is that you don't have to use the Tools menu in the upper corner of the window to get an incognito window. Just hit ctrl-shift-n, and one will pop right up. (And it's command + shift + N on a Mac.)

If there's a particular link you want to open in incognito mode, you can right click the link and select "Open link in incognito window", and you'll navigate to it without leaving any tracks.

Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer

Tip: Always restoring tabs

Sarah Nahm — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:00:00 +0000

When reading the last tip about restoring closed tabs, you might have wondered if you can just get the browser to always start up where you left off. This would save you the trouble of re-opening your windows and tabs manually.

It turns out you can do this easily. Open the Tools menu and select "Options" (or, if you're using a Mac, open "Preferences") and go to the "Basics" tab. The first section on the first page of options is called "On startup:", and in there you'll see an option to "Reopen the pages that were open last". Once you select this, Google Chrome will start up showing the same pages that were open when you shut down.

There is one caveat here. Normally, only the most recent window you were using is restored when you restart. If you have more than one window you want to restore, make sure you use the "Exit" choice in the Tools menu (on Mac: "Chrome" > "Quit Google Chrome") to shut down all your windows at once, instead of closing them one at a time. (Of course, as covered in the last tip, you can always restore the other window(s) manually if you forget to exit!)

Finally, if the browser ever crashes, the next time you start up you'll have the option at the top of your window to restore your previous windows and tabs, even if you haven't changed what appears on startup.

Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer

Google Chrome Beta for Mac updated – now with extensions

Sarah Nahm — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:00:00 +0000

The last time we put on a show
was just over two months ago.
We polished our Chrome
for Mac! It's at home
on anyone's MacBook or Pro.

It's fast, and of course, we ensure
the browser will stay more secure.
But some wrote a letter–
they wanted it better!
So clearly it had to mature.

Today, we are happy to mention
on Mac, you can use that extension!
And bookmark sync too,
plus, there's more for you
and if I still have your attention:

Read more about our release on the Google Chrome blog. If you're as psyched as we are, you can download the new Google Chrome Beta for Mac, now with extensions, bookmark sync, cookie and bookmark managers, and more. Still not convinced? Maybe a cute foam arrow would be more persuasive:

Posted by Mark Mentovai, Software Engineer, Google Chrome

A new beta of Google Chrome for Mac – with extensions and more

Sarah Nahm — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Since we released Chrome for Mac in beta last December, we've been busy adding new features. Today, after some incubation in the developer channel, we're happy to make some of these features more widely available. The new beta release of Chrome for Mac offers extensions, bookmark sync, and more.

With this new version, you'll be able to install any of over 2,200 extensions (and counting!) currently available in Chrome's extensions gallery. Extensions can add useful, informative, fun, or quirky functionality to the browser. You can manage your extensions by clicking on the Window menu and choosing "Extensions."

For this release, we remained focused on providing a snappy, safe, and simple browsing experience on the Mac. If you haven't tried Chrome on the Mac yet and are curious about its features, this video will take you on a brief tour:

Those of you who use several computers will now be able to keep your bookmarks synchronized between them. If some of your computers aren't Macs, don't worry: bookmark sync works in Chrome for Linux and Windows too. We also added bookmark and cookie managers in a way that feels completely at home on the Mac. For technically-oriented users, our new Task Manager will help you keep tabs on all of your tabs.

If you're not using Chrome yet, you can try all of these new features out by downloading the Google Chrome Beta for Mac. Existing Chrome users should be automatically updated to the new beta within the next day – just check the About window and look for version 5.0.307. We hope you're as excited about this new version as our animated friends are:

Posted by Mark Mentovai, Software Engineer, Google Chrome

Tip: Managing tabs

Sarah Nahm — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:26:00 +0000

When you're using the same browser window to check your email and calendar, write a report, do some research, and watch a few YouTube videos, the tabstrip can become pretty crowded. With Google Chrome, we tried to make it easy to keep your tabs organized.

You can use the mouse to grab a tab and drag it around in the tabstrip, to keep related tabs close to each other.

If you need even better delineation between tasks, just drag a tab out of the strip entirely and drop it somewhere on your desktop. You'll get a whole new window to keep stuff in, and you can then drag more tabs from your old window to your new one.

Didn't mean to create that window? Just drag the tab you dropped back up to the original tabstrip to put it back.

Of course, sometimes you don't want to move tabs, you just want to get rid of them. If you find that highlighting the little "x" that closes a tab is too tricky, you can just point at any part of the tab in the tabstrip and press your mouse's middle button. This makes it just a little easier to go close a tab.

And after you close one tab, the next tab will slide right under your mouse, so if you want to close a bunch, you can just keep clicking.

Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer

Over 1,500 new features for Google Chrome

Sarah Nahm — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:17:00 +0000

We're excited to usher in the new year with a bundle of browser goodness for the stable version of Google Chrome. With today's new stable release, all Google Chrome users on PCs can access over 1,500 new features, through our new extension system.

Extensions are little programs, created by developers, which add useful functionality to the browser and to the websites you visit. Some provide you with alerts and notifications, others let you easily access your favorite web services from icons next to your address bar, and there are lots more.

In the video below, I walk through how to install an extension as well as a few that I find useful:

You can find extensions for Google Chrome in our extension gallery, and install the ones that interest you. Extensions on Google Chrome take only seconds to install, and can be uninstalled just as easily. You can view and manage the settings for your extensions by clicking on the Tools menu and selecting "Extensions."

In addition to extensions, another feature that's moving from our beta to the stable channel on the Windows version of Google Chrome is bookmark sync. For those of you who use several computers -- for example, a laptop at work and a desktop at home -- you can now keep your Google Chrome bookmarks synchronized and up-to-date across computers, without needing to manually recreate your bookmarks every time you switch computers. To read more on bookmark sync, check out this handy guide.

For web developers and designers, we're excited to integrate a number of new HTML5 APIs in this stable release, including LocalStorage, Database API, WebSockets, and more. To dive into these features, read on in the Chromium Blog.

Lastly but certainly not the least, we've improved performance (as measured by Mozilla's Dromaeo DOM Core Tests) by 42% over our last stable release and 400% since our first stable release last year.

To those using Google Chrome on Linux, extensions are enabled on the beta channel. And for those using Google Chrome for Mac, hang tight — we're working on bringing extensions, bookmark sync and more to the beta soon. Those currently using the stable version for Windows will be automatically updated within the next week (or you can check for updates manually).

If you're on a PC and haven't tried Google Chrome yet, you can download Google Chrome and give all these new features a whirl.

Posted by Nick Baum, Product Manager

Tip: More omnibox power tools

Sarah Nahm — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:21:00 +0000

We've already seen a few things you can do with the omnibox, but it turns out there are even more capabilities you might not have known about.

First, you can create a desktop shortcut for the page you're on by simply highlighting the text in the omnibox, and then dragging that text onto your desktop.

If this is too fussy for you, you can drag the Star button next to the omnibox to the desktop to do the same thing (Note: this only applies to Google Chrome for Windows).

Second, if you've gotten a web address in an email or other document, and it isn't actually clickable, you can easily open it in the omnibox. Just select the link (even if it's broken across multiple lines!), copy it to your clipboard, and then right click (or on the Mac, ctrl-click) on the omnibox and select "Paste and go".

This will navigate to the link immediately. It works for things other than links too -- if you have some text on your clipboard, you can "Paste and search" to do the same thing as dragging the text to the omnibox.

Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer

Tip: New tab from the omnibox

Sarah Nahm — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:35:00 +0000

If you've ever wanted to search or navigate without disrupting the page you're currently reading, you've probably opened a new tab to do so. This means either clicking the "new tab" button at the end of the tabstrip, or using the "new tab" menu item or keyboard shortcut (ctrl-t).

A little-known shortcut can help you do this even faster.

If you type something in to the omnibox and hold down the Alt key while you press enter, the resulting page will open as a new tab at the end of your tabstrip, leaving your previous page untouched.

This way you can skip creating a new tab, and go straight to typing in what you want.

Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer

Announcing the Chromium OS Open Source Project

Sarah Nahm — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:49:00 +0000

Today we released Chromium OS, the open source project behind Google Chrome OS. Google Chrome OS is an operating system that is intended for people who spend most of their time on the web. It aims to provide a computing experience that is fast, simple and secure. The Chromium OS project as you'll see it today is comprised of the code that has been developed thus far, our early experiments with the user interface, and detailed design docs for many parts that are under active development.

To learn more about what Google Chrome OS is, watch this short video:

To get a feel for the Google Chrome OS user experience, you can watch the demo from this morning's announcement event.

Posted by Kan Liu, Product Manager

Are you seeing red?

Sarah Nahm — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:42:00 +0000

It's National Cyber Security Awareness Month, the perfect time to shed some light on a few Google Chrome alerts that are designed to help protect your browsing experience on the web.

You may have run into one of Google Chrome's red alert messages when trying to visit a site and wondered why the browser did not immediately bring up the page you requested. These are messages triggered by the phishing and malware protection feature that's enabled by default in the Options menu. Here's an example:

Whenever you see this warning, Google Chrome has detected that the site you're trying to visit may contain malware. Malware is code that attempts to steal your personal information or download harmful software onto your computer.

Besides the malware warning, Google Chrome also checks the security certificates of sites that claim to be properly encrypted (such as bank sites or shopping sites), but that may also ask you for your personal or financial information under false pretenses. If a site's certificate is suspicious, you may see one of the following messages:

"This is probably not the site you are looking for!"
This message comes up when the URL listed in the site's certificate doesn't match the site's actual URL, which means that the site you're trying to visit may be pretending to be another site.
"The site's security certificate is not trusted!"
Since anyone can create a certificate, Google Chrome checks to see whether a site's certificate came from a trusted organization. This message means that the certificate wasn't issued by a recognized third-party organization.

"The site's security certificate has expired!" or "The server's security certificate is not yet valid!"
If you see one of these messages, that means the site's certificate is not up-to-date. Therefore, Google Chrome can't verify that the site is secure.
"The server's security certificate is revoked!"
The third-party organization that issued the site's certificate has marked the certificate as invalid. Again, Google Chrome can't verify that the site is secure.

It's a good idea to heed these messages you see, even if the site you're trying to visit is owned by someone you know and trust. Hackers can take advantage of security holes on a site without the site owner's knowledge. So even though you've visited your friend's blog without any problem in the past, the warnings can still show up one day if someone exploits a vulnerability on the site. (And if you're seeing this message for a site you own, we're here to help! Just follow these instructions in the Webmaster Help Center. Also, check out this blog post we've written about detecting and removing malware.)

Google Chrome goes to great lengths to help keep you safe on the web. If you want to learn more about protecting your computer, website, and personal information, check out our security series on the Google blog or visit http://www.staysafeonline.org.

Posted by Fiona Chong, Online Editor

Tip of the day: Dragging to the omnibox

Sarah Nahm — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Our last Tip was about dragging links to the tabstrip. But sometimes instead of opening a link you want to search for some text. You might have already discovered that you can highlight text in a web page, right-click it, and get an option to search for that text with your default search engine.

It turns out there's another way to do the same thing: once you have some text selected, just click and hold the selection and drag it onto the omnibox.

When you let go, Google Chrome will search for the text you dropped using your default search engine. And just like with dragging links, you can drag in text from other programs too.

Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer

A guided tour for new Google Chrome users

Sarah Nahm — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:56:00 +0000

Did you, or someone you know, recently switch to Google Chrome and wonder, "Where's the file menu?" "What happened to the search box?" "How do I bookmark a page?" To address these initial questions and help people settle into the browser, we created the "New to Google Chrome?" guide.

The first section of the guide invites people to take a tour of the browser with a simple and interactive image map. The guide then walks through key browser settings and presents a few simple tasks that highlights the browser's main features.

Savvier users could go directly to the advanced section and pick up a few tricks like creating application shortcuts and doing site searches.

Check out the guide when you get the chance and pass it along to friends who are trying out Google Chrome.

Posted by Fiona Chong, Online Editor for the Google Chrome team

Tip: Dragging to the tabstrip

Sarah Nahm — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:02:00 +0000

We've already seen how to open links in new tabs or windows using keyboard modifiers. But what if you want to open a link in some existing place?

Click and hold on the link, and then drag it onto or between any of the tabs in the tabstrip.

You should see a small arrow appear showing where the link will open. When you release the mouse button, the link will load right at that arrow. If you drop it in the empty space after the last tab, you'll open a new tab at the end of the strip.

Rather than needing to copy and paste links, you can also just drag links from other programs, such as word processors or other browsers, and drop them on the Chrome tabstrip in the same way.

Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer