Chromium Blog
News and developments from the open source browser project
A Year of Extensions
Thursday, December 9, 2010
It’s hard to believe, but it’s already been a full year since we launched the Google Chrome extensions gallery.
It’s been a busy twelve months:
The gallery has grown to over 8,500 extensions and 1,500 themes.
A third of Chrome users have at least one extension installed.
Over 70 million extensions and themes have been installed.
On the client side, we added features like:
New APIs for things like
context menus
,
history
, and
cookies
.
Integration between extensions and HTML5 features like
notifications
and
geolocation
.
Extension sync, so your favorite extensions are always with you.
Native support for Greasemonkey
user scripts
.
Looking forward, we’re very excited about the
Chrome Web Store
, where developers will be able to easily sell their apps, extensions, and themes.
And we’re not going to slow down on the features, either. The next Chrome release will add API support for the
omnibox
and
pinned tabs
. Beyond that, we’re hard at work on popular requests like
network interception
and download management APIs, as well as new experimental APIs for
sidebars
and development tools.
Thanks for all your support over the last year, from bug reports to testing new APIs. It’s been a bit frantic at times, but mostly it’s been fun.
Posted by Aaron Boodman, Software Engineer
A New Crankshaft for V8
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Today we are introducing Crankshaft, a new compilation infrastructure for V8, Google Chrome’s JavaScript engine. By using aggressive optimizations, Crankshaft dramatically improves the performance of compute-intensive JavaScript applications - often by more than a factor of two! This will give users a faster and more responsive experience loading web pages and applications built with complex JavaScript. Here is a comparison of Chrome with and without Crankshaft on the
V8 benchmark suite
:
The benchmarks that benefit the most from Crankshaft are Richards, DeltaBlue and Crypto. This shows that we have taken the performance of JavaScript property accesses, arithmetic operations, tight loops, and function calls to the next level. Overall, Crankshaft boosts V8’s performance by 50% on the V8 benchmark suite. This is the biggest performance improvement since we launched Chrome in 2008.
In addition to improving peak performance as measured by the V8 benchmark suite, Crankshaft also improves the start-up time of web applications such as GMail. Our
page cycler
benchmarks show that Crankshaft improves the page load performance of Chrome by 12% for pages that contain significant amounts of JavaScript code.
Crankshaft uses adaptive compilation to improve both start-up time and peak performance. The idea is to heavily optimize code that is frequently executed and not waste time optimizing code that is not. Because of this, benchmarks that finish in just a few milliseconds, such as SunSpider, will show little improvement with Crankshaft. The more work an application does, the bigger the gains will be.
Crankshaft has four main components:
A
base compiler
which is used for all code initially. The base compiler generates code quickly without heavy optimizations. Compilation with the base compiler is twice as fast as with the V8 compiler in Chrome 9 and generates 30% less code.
A
runtime profiler
which monitors the running system and identifies hot code, i.e., code that we spend a significant amount of the time running.
An
optimizing compiler
which recompiles and optimizes hot code identified by the runtime profiler. It uses
static single assignment
form to perform optimizations such as
loop-invariant code motion
, linear-scan
register allocation
and
inlining
. The optimization decisions are based on type information collected while running the code produced by the base compiler.
Deoptimization support
which allows the optimizing compiler to be optimistic in the assumptions it makes when generating code. With deoptimization support, it is possible to bail out to the code generated by the base compiler if the assumptions in the optimized code turn out to be too optimistic.
V8 with Crankshaft for the 32-bit Intel architecture is available today in the V8
bleeding edge repository
and in
canary builds
of Chrome. Work on the ARM and 64-bit ports has started.
We are excited about the JavaScript speed improvements we are delivering with Crankshaft today. Crankshaft provides a great infrastructure for the next wave of JavaScript speed improvements in V8 and we will continue to push JavaScript performance to enable the next generation of web applications.
Kevin Millikin, Software Engineer and Florian Schneider, Software Engineer
Rolling out a sandbox for Adobe Flash Player
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Since this past
March
, we’ve been working closely with Adobe to allow Flash Player to take advantage of new sandboxing technology in Chrome, extending the
work we’ve already done
with sandboxing for HTML rendering and JavaScript execution. This week, we’re excited to roll out the initial Flash Player sandbox for our dev channel users on Windows XP, Vista and 7.
This initial Flash Player sandbox is an important milestone in making Chrome even safer. In particular, users of Windows XP will see a major security benefit, as Chrome is currently the only browser on the XP platform that runs Flash Player in a sandbox. This first iteration of Chrome’s Flash Player sandbox for all Windows platforms uses a modified version of Chrome’s existing sandbox technology that protects certain sensitive resources from being accessed by malicious code, while allowing applications to use less sensitive ones. This implementation is a significant first step in further reducing the potential attack surface of the browser and protecting users against common malware.
While we’ve laid a tremendous amount of groundwork in this initial sandbox, there’s still more work to be done. We’re working to improve protection against additional attack vectors, and will be using this initial effort to provide fully sandboxed implementations of the Flash Player on all platforms.
We’ll be posting updates as we continue working with Adobe to add new security improvements to the Flash Player sandbox. For those of you on the dev channel for Windows, you’ll be automatically updated soon, and we look forward to your feedback as you test it out. If you prefer to disable this initial sandbox in your Chrome dev experience, add --disable-flash-sandbox to the command line.
Posted by Justin Schuh and Carlos Pizano, Software Engineers
App Permissions
Thursday, November 18, 2010
This is part of a
series
of blog posts that provide tips and tricks on how to create better web apps as well as insights behind the technology of the Chrome Web Store - Ed.
Web development sure got fun recently, right? Local storage, notifications, new form controls, geolocation, inline multimedia... the list goes on and on. These new capabilities can help web developers build powerful new features in their apps.
However, many of these new additions to the web platform are not allowed to web pages by default. For example, to protect a user’s privacy, browsers do not allow web pages to use the geolocation API to access a user’s location unless they prompt the user. Browsers show these prompts each time a web page tries to use a potentially invasive or unsafe capability:
But these prompts can be quite annoying, especially when one web page asks for several of them. And some of these privileges are relatively obscure or incomprehensible to the user. As a result they end up being ignored or scare users from allowing a particular functionality. Most people don’t know what a “clipboard” is, so asking them about access to it is not that informative or helpful.
Now in the Chrome Web Store, developers can create “apps” that group together multiple privilege requests for a single site. Apps have a lightweight installation step that displays the privileges the app requests all together. Once an app is installed, it can use the privileges it requested during the installation process without any further nagging.
Some privileges are relatively low-risk, so we infer permission to use them from the act of installing the application. An example of this is the notifications API. The only reason it isn’t allowed to normal web sites by default is that it could be used annoyingly. When a user installs an app, we interpret that as a sign of at least some trust, and allow that application to use the Notifications API without additional prompting. If users do not like the notifications that the application generates, they can either disable them in the app’s notification UI or they can simply uninstall the app.
In this first version of apps for the Chrome Web Store, we support permission request declarations for the geolocation, notifications, and unlimited storage privileges. Over time we’ll be adding even more.
To learn more about how to build apps for the Chrome Web Store, visit the developer documentation at
code.google.com/chrome/webstore
.
Posted by Aaron Boodman, Software Engineer
Compatibility Issues With EMET
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
We have discovered compatibility issues between Google Chrome and
Microsoft’s Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit
(EMET). EMET is used to deploy and configure security mitigation technologies, often for legacy software. However, because Chrome already uses many of the same techniques (and
more
), EMET does not provide any additional protection for Chrome. In fact, the current version of EMET interferes with Chrome’s security and prevents Chrome from updating.
We are working closely with Microsoft on a solution to these issues. In the meantime, we advise users and enterprises not to attempt to configure EMET to work with Chrome.
Posted by Ian Fette, Product Manager and Carlos Pizano, Software Engineer
Creating a Great User Interface For Your Web App
Friday, October 29, 2010
Today we are kicking off a series of blog posts that provide tips and tricks on how to create better web apps as well as insights behind the technology of the Chrome Web Store - Ed
.
Looking at building a web app for the
Chrome Web Store
? The browser landscape has changed a lot recently and user expectations about the quality and polish level of apps are extremely high thanks in part to the success of highly polished mobile apps. Can you meet these high expectations with a webapp?
Fortunately, you now have a lot more power and flexibility with the user interface thanks to the power of
HTML5, CSS3, and other new web technologies
. It’s now possible to make a web app that is every bit as slick and polished as the best desktop or phone app, while still maintaining the flexibility and portability of the web. For example, using CSS3 transitions and animations, you can make actions in your app feel much more interactive. You can use CSS3’s support for gradients, reflections and rounded corners to create scalable interfaces that look as if they were built using hand-crafted images. And with the rise of
GPU-accelerated graphics
, you’re now able to create compelling 3D experiences.
However, creating great user experiences is about more than sizzle and polish. Another important factor is focus. Ideally, an app should accomplish a single task well with a minimal amount of distractions. Be judicious with your use of links and ads that could take users away from the task at hand. When the user launches your app, they’re trying to accomplish something specific that your app enables; help them get started right away by minimizing the steps that they need to take, especially when they’re first trying your app. If the first thing a user sees is a registration screen, many will bounce off (once you need the users to sign in, you can use
OpenID and Google Accounts
to simplify the process). By installing your app they’ve indicated something stronger than just clicking a link - they want to use your app to accomplish something specific. Keep the distractions to a minimum and keep your app focused on the job at hand and your users will be happier.
UI responsiveness in your app is also crucial. For example, let’s say you’ve built a photo stitching app that glues together photos into one seamless larger photo. This may require a lot of CPU horsepower or even that you do the heavy lifting on the server. Maybe the whole operation takes two minutes to complete. However, you can still keep your interactive performance high while the operation proceeds asynchronously. You could ship the CPU work off of the main user interface thread using an
HTML5 Worker
or you could offload it to a server with an XHR. That alone isn’t enough though. You need to give the user feedback while this is happening, ideally something cool and visual and not just a progress bar. Meanwhile, the user should be able to do other things. If that’s not possible, then cancelling needs to be easy and responsive. Interactive performance is usually something that needs to be designed into your app up front rather than added later as an afterthought, so plan ahead.
In short, you need to think both like app developer as well as a web developer. Putting a little extra thought into focus, performance, feedback and polish can make the difference between “meh” and “whee!”.
Posted by Erik Kay, Software Engineer
V8 Benchmark Suite Updated
Thursday, October 7, 2010
The
V8 benchmark suite
contains a number of pure JavaScript benchmarks that capture the areas in which a JavaScript engine has to perform well to support the well-structured, maintainable, and high-performance web applications of tomorrow. These benchmarks have been useful for us when optimizing the V8 JavaScript engine and we have found that making them run faster leads to better performance for many of the web applications we enjoy using every day.
Today we have released
version 6
of the V8 benchmark suite. The main changes are in the RegExp and Splay components of the benchmark suite. For reference, we describe each of the existing benchmarks in the suite below, along with any changes made in version 6.
RegExp
: Regular expression benchmark generated by extracting regular expression operations from 50 of the most popular web pages. The regular expressions are exercised a number of times to reflect their popularity on those top 50 web pages.
Changed in version 6: each regular expression is now exercised on a number of different input strings instead of just one.
Splay
: Data manipulation benchmark that modifies a large splay tree to exercise the automatic memory management subsystem. The benchmark builds a large splay tree in a setup phase and then measures how fast nodes can be added and removed.
Changed in version 6: no longer converts the same numeric key to string repeatedly and updates the splay tree in a way that increases the pressure on the memory management subsystem.
Richards
: Operating system kernel simulation benchmark originally written in BCPL by Martin Richards. The Richards benchmark effectively measures how fast the JavaScript engine is at accessing object properties, calling functions, and dealing with polymorphism. It is a standard benchmark that has been successfully used to measure the performance of many modern programming language implementations.
DeltaBlue
: One-way constraint solver, originally written in Smalltalk by John Maloney and Mario Wolczko. The DeltaBlue benchmark is written in an object-oriented style with a multi-level class hierarchy. As such it measures how fast the JavaScript engine is at running well-structured applications with many objects and small functions.
Changed in version 6: fixed a couple of typos that do not have any impact on the behavior of the benchmark.
Crypto
: Encryption and decryption benchmark based on code by Tom Wu. The benchmark encrypts an input string, decrypts the result and verifies that encryption followed by decryption yields the original input. The encryption/decryption algorithm is RSA and the benchmark measures the performance of arithmetic operations on integers and array access.
RayTrace
: Ray tracer benchmark based on code by Adam Burmister. The benchmark measures floating-point computations where the object structure is constructed using the Prototype JavaScript library.
Changed in version 6: removed dead code that has no impact on the behavior of the benchmark.
EarleyBoyer
: Classic Scheme benchmarks, translated to JavaScript by Florian Loitsch's Scheme2Js compiler. The benchmarks exercise important areas of the JavaScript engine such as object allocation, data structure manipulation, and garbage collection. The translated nature of the benchmarks make them appear foreign, but the runtime characteristics of the benchmarks are highly representative of many real world web applications.
Curious to know how your browser performs?
Give it a spin
on the new version of the V8 benchmark suite.
Posted by Kasper Lund, Software Engineer
Labels
$200K
1
10th birthday
4
abusive ads
1
abusive notifications
2
accessibility
3
ad blockers
1
ad blocking
2
advanced capabilities
1
android
2
anti abuse
1
anti-deception
1
background periodic sync
1
badging
1
benchmarks
1
beta
83
better ads standards
1
billing
1
birthday
4
blink
2
browser
2
browser interoperability
1
bundles
1
capabilities
6
capable web
1
cds
1
cds18
2
cds2018
1
chrome
35
chrome 81
1
chrome 83
2
chrome 84
2
chrome ads
1
chrome apps
5
Chrome dev
1
chrome dev summit
1
chrome dev summit 2018
1
chrome dev summit 2019
1
chrome developer
1
Chrome Developer Center
1
chrome developer summit
1
chrome devtools
1
Chrome extension
1
chrome extensions
3
Chrome Frame
1
Chrome lite
1
Chrome on Android
2
chrome on ios
1
Chrome on Mac
1
Chrome OS
1
chrome privacy
4
chrome releases
1
chrome security
10
chrome web store
32
chromedevtools
1
chromeframe
3
chromeos
4
chromeos.dev
1
chromium
9
cloud print
1
coalition
1
coalition for better ads
1
contact picker
1
content indexing
1
cookies
1
core web vitals
2
csrf
1
css
1
cumulative layout shift
1
custom tabs
1
dart
8
dashboard
1
Data Saver
3
Data saver desktop extension
1
day 2
1
deceptive installation
1
declarative net request api
1
design
2
developer dashboard
1
Developer Program Policy
2
developer website
1
devtools
13
digital event
1
discoverability
1
DNS-over-HTTPS
4
DoH
4
emoji
1
emscriptem
1
enterprise
1
extensions
27
Fast badging
1
faster web
1
features
1
feedback
2
field data
1
first input delay
1
Follow
1
fonts
1
form controls
1
frameworks
1
fugu
2
fund
1
funding
1
gdd
1
google earth
1
google event
1
google io 2019
1
google web developer
1
googlechrome
12
harmful ads
1
html5
11
HTTP/3
1
HTTPS
4
iframes
1
images
1
incognito
1
insecure forms
1
intent to explain
1
ios
1
ios Chrome
1
issue tracker
3
jank
1
javascript
5
lab data
1
labelling
1
largest contentful paint
1
launch
1
lazy-loading
1
lighthouse
2
linux
2
Lite Mode
2
Lite pages
1
loading interventions
1
loading optimizations
1
lock icon
1
long-tail
1
mac
1
manifest v3
2
metrics
2
microsoft edge
1
mixed forms
1
mobile
2
na
1
native client
8
native file system
1
New Features
5
notifications
1
octane
1
open web
4
origin trials
2
pagespeed insights
1
pagespeedinsights
1
passwords
1
payment handler
1
payment request
1
payments
2
performance
20
performance tools
1
permission UI
1
permissions
1
play store
1
portals
3
prefetching
1
privacy
2
privacy sandbox
4
private prefetch proxy
1
profile guided optimization
1
progressive web apps
2
Project Strobe
1
protection
1
pwa
1
QUIC
1
quieter permissions
1
releases
3
removals
1
rlz
1
root program
1
safe browsing
2
Secure DNS
2
security
36
site isolation
1
slow loading
1
sms receiver
1
spam policy
1
spdy
2
spectre
1
speed
4
ssl
2
store listing
1
strobe
2
subscription pages
1
suspicious site reporter extension
1
TCP
1
the fast and the curious
23
TLS
1
tools
1
tracing
1
transparency
1
trusted web activities
1
twa
2
user agent string
1
user data policy
1
v8
6
video
2
wasm
1
web
1
web apps
1
web assembly
2
web developers
1
web intents
1
web packaging
1
web payments
1
web platform
1
web request api
1
web vitals
1
web.dev
1
web.dev live
1
webapi
1
webassembly
1
webaudio
3
webgl
7
webkit
5
WebM
1
webmaster
1
webp
5
webrtc
6
websockets
5
webtiming
1
writable-files
1
yerba beuna center for the arts
1
Archive
2025
May
Jan
2024
Dec
Aug
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
2023
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jun
May
Apr
Feb
2022
Dec
Sep
Aug
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2021
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2020
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2019
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2018
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2017
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2016
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Feed
Follow @ChromiumDev
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
