Recreating the Google Chrome icon: videos from around the world

When I was originally designing the Google Chrome icon, I went through many iterations to figure out how to best represent our brand new web browser. The design needed to stand out on the desktop, look stable yet dynamic, and use color to show some Google branding. Through the design process, another quality that became important to the team was to make the icon feel like a real, tangible object so that clicking on it would be like pressing a real button.

This June, we invited users to take the icon and actually build it in a new, creative way. Many people around the world accepted the challenge and submitted fun and surprising videos of their process. We got to see the icon made out of some interesting materials — like cups, dominos, food and even clothing — as well as many unique digital creations.

I was really impressed by the great care people took in recreating the icon, and I particularly enjoyed this video by Renaud, a fan of Google Chrome in Annecy, France:

A big thank you to everyone who sent us videos. Check out all the submissions here.

Posted by Micheal Lopez, Web Design Lead

A New Beta: Why slow down when you can speed up?

There's a brand new beta for you to try out today. As always, we continue to focus on speed, and this beta release shows over 30% improvement on both the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over our current stable channel release. We've also improved two of the most loved and most used features of Google Chrome: the New Tab page and the Omnibox. Plus, we decided to add a little bit of style by allowing you to deck out your browser with colors, patterns, and images.

Customize the new New Tab page
The New Tab page has been one of the most popular features in Google Chrome. It's also the one that we hear the most about. Embarrassed that checking out lolcats is showing up as your most popular browser pastime? Now you can bump up something dignified and refined into that top Most Visited slot with a simple click and drag of your mouse. You can pin website thumbnails to a particular spot so they don't disappear even if your browsing habits change. Last but not least, you can hide parts of the page if you don't want to see them using the layout buttons on the top right of the New Tab page.


Rearrange website thumbnails on the New Tab page by clicking and dragging thumbnails


Pin websites thumbnails to a particular spot


Try the latest and greatest Omnibox
The Omnibox is indisputably an important part of Google Chrome -- it helps you get to the sites you're looking for with just a few keystrokes. With this release, we've optimized the presentation of the drop-down menu and added little icons to help you distinguish between suggested sites, searches, bookmarks, and sites from your browsing history.




Tweak the chrome of Google Chrome
We built Google Chrome to be speedy, stable and more secure. Now we're adding a little bit of style by allowing you to add a theme to your browser. So, if you've been dying for a browser that reminds you of the Friendly Confines, or if you just want the comfort of your favorite blanket when you're browsing the web, now you can have it. Of course, if baseball or quilting isn't your thing, you can change the theme of your browser by visiting the Themes Gallery. There is still some testing to do -- we're only launching some very basic themes and there are still some kinks to work out, but we will add more themes in the future as we roll this out to the stable version.


A sneak peek at the woody "Desktop" theme



...and your favorite website thumbnails basking on a grassy field


Experience HTML5 capabilities
We're always trying to further push the things you can do in the browser. For example, we've started building HTML5 capabilities into this beta release, including video tag functionality and web workers.


Speed, Speed, and more Speed
Beyond the improvements in JavaScript execution in this latest beta, there are a host of other improvements that should help Google Chrome make the most of your network connection. For example, when you open a new web page while other web pages are still loading, Google Chrome is now smarter about prioritizing the requests for the new page -- for instance, fetching text, images, and video for your new page -- ahead of the requests from the older pages. Loading pages on this beta release should also be faster than ever with DNS caching, more efficient DOM bindings, and using V8 for proxy auto-config.


To try out these new features, you need to get on the beta channel. This means that your version of Google Chrome will regularly get updated with new speed enhancements, features, and bug fixes before most users see them. The beta channel provides a sneak preview of things to come with occasional rough edges, but it's a great way for us to quickly churn out new features and get your feedback.

If you're interested in giving all these fresh new features a whirl, download the beta version of Google Chrome.

Posted by Glen Murphy, Software Engineer

Tip: Quick site searches with the Omnibox

We recently showcased how the address bar (also affectionately known as the Omnibox) doubles as a search box: simply type a search term in the box and press Enter to see results from your default search engine.

Here's another fun fact about the address bar: you can use it to search sites that you've previously visited.

Say you frequently go to YouTube to watch funny videos. The next time you need a good laugh, just start typing "youtube" in the address bar. After a few letters, the address bar will automatically offer you the option to search the site.

Now the cool trick: hit Tab on your keyboard to convert the address bar into a search box for the site.

Then type what you're looking for and press Enter. Google Chrome will immediately bring you to the search results page on that site. In this case, you'll see YouTube's search results page for "dog on skates":

Use this "tab to search" shortcut to save yourself a few clicks the next time you want to quickly search a site. Try it out and let us know what you think!

Posted by Fiona Chong, Google Chrome team

10 days left to submit your video

Over the past few weeks, we on the Google Chrome team have been delighted and entertained by your video entries for the Google Chrome Icon Project.

Videos so far have ranged from dessert making in California to coordinated hockey players in Russia to complex 3D animations from Japan. You can view all the submissions on YouTube.

There are still 10 days left to submit your video - so break out your most ambitious ideas and submit something iconic!



Posted by Jason Toff, Google Chrome Team

Google Chrome OS - FAQ

We've been getting a number of questions in reference to our 'Introducing the Google Chrome OS' blog post, and so here are a number of your most frequently asked Qs – along with our As. We'll be sure to add more to this list as popular questions come in.

Is Google Chrome OS free?
Yes – Google Chrome OS is an open source project and will be available to use at no cost.

What companies is Google working with to support Google Chrome OS?
The Google Chrome OS team is currently working with a number of technology companies to design and build devices that deliver an extraordinary end user experience. Among others, these companies include Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba.

I'm a developer – how can I work with you?
Thanks for your interest. Later this year, the Google Chrome OS code will be open sourced. We're looking forward to working with the open source community and making our own small contribution to the great work being done out there. Please stay tuned.

If you are interested in a full time position as a software engineer please visit the jobs pages for the following offices and indicate that you are interested in Chrome.

• Mountain View, US
• San Francisco, US
• Kirkland, US
• Santa Monica, US
• Reston, US
• Montreal, CA
• Aarhus, DK
• London, UK
• St. Petersburg, RU
• Tokyo, JP

Posted by Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management and Linus Upson, Engineering Director

Update on 7/8/2009: We updated the list of companies we are working with.

Lost a tab? Not to worry.

Google Chrome has a lot of features that make your browsing easier, but you might not notice them all right away. This is because we've taken great care to keep our design clean, so features don't get in your way when you're not using them. A great example of this is our session restore functionality, which lets you reopen tabs and windows you recently closed. Here's how to use it:



Posted by Nick Baum, Google Chrome team

Google Update, Updated

A few months ago, we released the source code to Google Update, our software that ensures that users are using the latest and greatest version of Google Chrome. Today, we are making another improvement to Google Update such that it will run at periodic intervals, as opposed to running as a continual process. Learn more on the Open Source Blog.

Posted by Jason Toff, Google Chrome Team