Google Begins Using AI to Scan Websites In Real-time For Scams

 Google is now utilizing a new version of the company's Gemini AI model to check websites in real-time for scams and potential hazards. The new on-device model, called Gemini Nano, runs directly from within Chrome on your desktop to protects users’ privacy and data by scanning web pages and on-site ads for 'scammy' language and code to warn users of potentially unsafe sites.

As with Chrome’s existing safe browsing mode, if a user attempts to access a potentially unsafe site, they’ll see a warning before being given the option to continue to the page. Dubbed Enhanced Protection mode,  Google says the new tool offers the highest level of protection, to keep users twice as safe from phishing and other scams versus their Standard Protection mode. The on-device approach provides instant insight on risky websites and allows Chrome to offer protection, even against scams that haven't been seen before. 

In their update Google states that Gemini Nano's LLM is perfect for this use because of its ability to distill the varied, complex nature of websites, helping then to adapt to new scam tactics more quickly. Although Google has long used machine learning to protect its services, newer AI advancements have led to improved language understanding and pattern recognition, enabling the tech to identify scams faster and more effectively.

Alongside the updates to the desktop version of Chrome is also launching new AI-powered warnings for Chrome on Android meant to help users in fighting scams, spam and unwanted notifications. When Chrome’s on-device machine learning model flags a notification, you’ll receive a warning with the option to either unsubscribe or view the content that was blocked. And if you decide the warning was shown incorrectly, you can choose to allow future notifications from that website.

For more details read Google's update here.

Chrome Takes Top Spot From Internet Explore For First Time Ever

After 21 years Microsoft's reign at the top of the browser market has officially come to an end! According to the most recent analytics Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) continued its downward spiral and has officially relinquished the No. 1 spot to Google's Chrome browser. Marking a major milestone not only in IE's 21-year lifespan, but a dramatic changing of the desktop browser guard.

Over the past several years Microsoft has seen Internet Explorer's market share repeatedly dip in favor of up and coming browsers from Google, Mozilla and Opera. However, not once have we seen any of those companies manage to topple Microsoft from the number one spot. According to U.S. analytics vendor Net Applications, during the month of April we saw Chrome do just that.

Net Applications reports that "IE" -- fell 2 percentage points in April, the fifth straight month of a loss greater than a point, and the 16th of any size -- to end at 41.4% of the total global browser user share. Meanwhile, Chrome climbed 2.6 percentage points to take a narrow lead with 41.7%.

Computerworld has attributed IE's decline to Microsoft's August 2014 announcement that users of older versions had to upgrade, in most cases, to IE11, by Jan. 12, 2016. Since the announcement, IE has lost more than 17.1 percentage points of user share, representing a 29% decline.

By forcing customers to upgrade to a newer version of IE -- or alternately, turn to Windows 10 and its default browser Edge -- Microsoft demanded that users change browsers. That had appears to have had a disastrous impact on IE's user share as people rethought their browser choice, and then abandoned Microsoft's browsers for rivals' -- notably Chrome.

Another very plausible cause for users making the change, and one I see as being slightly more likely, is that more users are becoming more familiar with Chrome from the uptake in usage of Google's other services and through Android on their mobile devices. As more companies incorporate Google's services like Drive and Docs, more users are finding it easier to migrate to Chrome and its built in cross functionality. The same with Android users that may in the past have not seen the benefit of using Chrome but now are as they typically have a Google account and use Google's services through Android.

Google Makes Changes to Pwnium Competition Offers Bigger Rewards Year Around

It is almost time for the CanSecWest security conference, which has played host to Google's Pwnium competition for the last few years. For those that don't know, Pwnium is the hacking competition that gives security researchers a chance to show off some of their latest exploits for the chance to win a share of a huge pile of cash that Google puts up for rewards each year (last year it was e million). This year Google has announced it will be making a few changes to the competition taking it to all new levels of extreme!

Starting today, Pwnium will change its scope significantly, from a single-day competition held once a year at CanSecWest to a year round, worldwide opportunity for security researchers to showcase their findings of the latest bugs and vulnerabilities.

Google says they are making these changes for several reasons. The biggest of course being delays in reporting of new finds. As it stands there is little incentive for researchers to come forward with vulnerabilities, because it literally doesn’t pay to do so. With the new, more lucrative rewards program Google hopes to eliminate those delays. Some other reasons for the changes given are:

• Removing barriers to entry: At Pwnium competitions, a security researcher would need to have a bug chain in March, pre-register, have a physical presence at the competition location and hopefully get a good timeslot. Under the new scheme, security researchers can submit their bugs year-round through the Chrome Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP) whenever they find them.
• Removing the incentive for bug hoarding: If a security researcher was to discover a Pwnium-quality bug chain today, it’s highly likely that they would wait until the contest to report it to get a cash reward. This is a bad scenario for all parties. It’s bad for us because the bug doesn’t get fixed immediately and our users are left at risk. It’s bad for them as they run the real risk of a bug collision. By allowing security researchers to submit bugs all year-round, collisions are significantly less likely and security researchers aren’t duplicating their efforts on the same bugs.
• Our researchers want this: On top of all of these reasons, we asked our handful of participants if they wanted an option to report all year. They did, so we’re delivering.

Starting today, instead of going the traditional route and applying for Pwnium, researchers can now submit bug chains to the Chrome Vulnerability Reward Program for confirmation and possible payout. Here are a list of rules for submission:

• Only the first report of a given issue that we were previously unaware of is eligible. In the event of a duplicate submission, the earliest filed bug report in the bug tracker is considered the first report.
  
• Bugs disclosed publicly or to a third-party for purposes other than fixing the bug will typically not qualify for a reward. We encourage responsible disclosure, and believe responsible disclosure is a two-way street; it’s our duty to fix serious bugs within a reasonable time frame.
  
• If you have a fuzzer running on ClusterFuzz as part of our Trusted Researcher program, you will not receive a reward if one of our fuzzers finds the same bug within 48 hours.
  

Google will be adding Pwnium-style bug chains on Chrome OS to the Chrome VRP. This will increase the top reward to $50,000, which will be on offer all year-round. There’s no limit on the number of bugs you can submit. Last year, the Pwnium gave out awards ranging from $110,000 to $150,000 for various pre-determined exploits. Google says the reason Pwnium rewards were so much larger is because of the constraints on the types of bugs that could be submitted.

For security teams and researchers interested Google invites you to checkout their FAQ for more information. Good luck and happy bug hunting!

Track What Your Chrome Apps & Extensions Are Doing With Your Information

What is a browser these days without all those handy extensions and add-ons? Pretty boring if you ask me! Browser extensions have become a major part of the browsing experience and off a quick easy was to enhance your browser capabilities, functionality, looks and even feel.

However, some extensions ask for broad permissions that allow access to sensitive data such as browser cookies or history. Some may even go well beyond that! For those that have always wondered what information their Google Chrome add-ons and extensions access, we now have an easy tool that will give us just that!

Last year, Google introduced the Chrome Apps & Extensions Developer Tool, which provides an improved developer experience for debugging apps and extensions. The newest version of the tool, which became available today, will allow any geek or power user that wants full details on any of their installed Chrome apps or extensions to see the precise actions that they performing.

Once you’ve installed the Chrome Apps & Extensions Developer Tool, it will start locally auditing your extensions and apps as you use them. For each app or extension, you can see historical activity over the past few days as well as real-time activity by clicking the “Behavior” link. The tool highlights activities that involve your information, such as reading website cookies or modifying web sites, in a privacy section. You can also search for URLs to see if an extension has modified any matching pages.

For developers, if you’re debugging an app or extension, you can use the “Realtime” tab to watch the stream of API calls as an extension or app runs. This can help you track down glitches or identify unnecessary API calls.

Source: Official Chromium Blog

Google's Personal Search Assistant Google Now Coming To Desktops Via Chrome

Google’s intelligent personal assistant found on smartphones running Jelly Bean is getting ready to roll out to desktop users in the form of a Google Chrome notifications. The feature was discovered in the latest Chromium beta release after being dissected by developers. Those developers have discovered the top-level structure for showing Google Now cards in Chrome via Chrome notifications.

For those note familiar with Google Now it's a search assistant found within Jelly Bean. The service displays Cards or Snapshots of information that Google thinks you might need to know about. This could be as basic as offering directions to the restaurant you just looked up, or as sophisticated as poping up a reminder for an upcoming flight it found within an email on Gmail.

At present nothing official has been released on the possible implementation and nothing has been activated. But clearly the company has been working on porting its predictive search features over to the desktop for future possibilities.

Google Releases Chrome Browser For iOS Devices

Today at the Google I/O conference, Google announced the immediate availability of an iOS friendly version its Chrome web browser.

For current Chrome users the new Chrome app will provide many of the same features you'd see from current browser. Like the desktop version of Chrome, the iOS app will sync across all of your devices. This means that you can sync all your bookmarks, passwords ect. It even supports the continued reading function. So should you can pull up pages that you looked at on your PC or iPhone via the iPad, or vice versa.

The iOS market has been a tough one to crack from most third party browsers. Apple has set stringent requirement as to what platforms will be supported and how the apps can interact with their mobile operating system. However, more and more companies are working on projects to develop browsers based on Apple’s version of the Webkit (UIWebView) rendering engine.

Chrome for iOS will work on the both the iPhone and iPad and you can download it now from iTunes Chrome for iOS.

Note: It's worth mentioning that while both Safari and Chrome are based on the open source WebKit browser engine, Google was required to use Apple’s version of Webkit (UIWebView) as the Javascript engine for rendering also Chrome doesn’t get to use Mobile Safari’s Nitro Javascript engine, so Chrome may end up running noticeably slower than on your iOS devices than on your desktop or Android devices and it might be considerably slower than Safari.

For Firefox fans, Mozilla has announced their own WebKit based browser, currently called Junior. Details are still very sketchy and there hasn't been much news since the announcement so we don't know when it might be available.

Safari will remain the default browser on iOS, but for many, the option of Chrome will be a welcome change. Other iOS browser options currently include Yahoo’s Axis visual search app, Opera Mini and the Dolphin Browser.

Australian Tech Retailer Taxes Internet Explorer 7 Users

Any webmaster out there knows that developing websites with cross browser support can at times be messy. A site that looks and performs great on one browser might not performs so well on another. Well one internet guru is taking matters into his own hands by implementing what he believes to be “the world’s first ‘Internet Explorer 7 Tax.’”

Ruslan Kogan may not be a known entity in the U.S. (yes I had to look it up when I first read this story), is well know in the land down under. The Australian entrepreneur is a pioneer of online retail and happens to be the country’s wealthiest self-made person under the age of 30. Kogan founded Kogan.com, a manufacturer and direct retailer of consumer electronics that’s projected to hit over $100 million in sales this year. But, more importantly, the guy seems to hate the fact that his developers have to spend added time, and money developing his sites that already run seamlessly on Firefox, Chrome and Opera by building a friendly version of the site for Internet Explorer 7 users.

He hates it so much that he is willing to wage war against IE7 and charge his customers a 6.8% tax on any item purchased on his site.

In a posting on his official blog Kogan explains his reasoning

Today at Kogan we've implemented the world's first "Internet Explorer 7 Tax". The new 6.8% tax comes into effect today on all products purchased from Kogan.com by anyone still insistent on using the antique browser.

The way we've been able to keep our prices so low is by using technology to make our business efficient and streamlined. One of the things stopping that is our web team having to spend a lot of time making our new website look normal on IE7. This is an extremely old browser, so from today, anyone buying from the site who uses IE7 will be lumped with a 6.8% surcharge - that's 0.1% for each month IE7 has been on the market:

As Internet citizens, we all have a responsibility to make the Internet a better place. By taking these measures, we are doing our bit. This will help us increase our efficiency, help keep prices for all smart shoppers down, and hopefully help eradicate the world of the pain in the rear that is IE7!

So, what are you waiting for? Time to upgrade your browser!

Now we may all laugh at this at first, but think about it. If it takes me an extra hour or two to develop a site for an older browser. That is cost out of my pocket. So why not pass some of the expense on. By means of telling you you need to upgrade, Kogan is actually doing you a favor. Once, by added security, and again by saving you the cost he is imposing.

Now obviously this is a bit of a PR stunt. Those Aussie's are well known for pulling off lavish stunts like this just to garner a bit of fame around the world. But it does have some merit. I'd just like to seem him take it a step further and add in a warning for users of any dated browser not just IE7. I mean IE7 isn't really that old, or that bad. It has been a bit of a P.I.T.A. to code for but at least its not IE6 or early editions of some of the other browsers with loads of security holes.

Firefox And Chrome To Get Windows Metro Style Apps

By the time Windows 8 arrives later this year most of your favorite browsers will be ready with a Metro style version built specifically around the new operating and its new user interface.

Earlier this week Mozilla confirmed that developers have stared development on the Firefox for Metro project with plans to unveil a concept version of it next quarter, and push out alpha and beta versions in the second half of 2012. Following suite Google is also reportedly working on a version of Chrome that runs on the Metro UI of Windows 8.

An unnamed Google representative discussed the company's plans with Mashable. The official said Chrome for Windows 8 will be based off the existing desktop browser, as opposed to the Android version of Chrome. Google will improve touch support on the desktop side, but will also build a Metro version for the tablet-friendly side of Windows 8.

Windows 8 is currently in a prerelease Consumer Preview state with no know official release date. Neither Mozila or Google have set official release dates for either browser and there is currently little information available on potential features the software may carry.

Firefox, Chrome And IE9 All Fall At Pwn2Own 2012

This year's Pwn2Own hacking contest saw almost all of your favorite browsers falling to "zero-day" exploits with only Apple's Safari standing untested at the end of the day.

HP TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), Pwn2Own's sponsor, as well as Google who sponsored their first-ever hacking event called "Pwnium," have confirmed that Chrome, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) and Firefox have all fallen to zero-day attacks exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in the most up-to-date versions of each browser. In each case the security teams were able to bypass the browsers security to take complete control of the target machine and run malicious code.

ZDI has confirmed that for the first year Safari was the only browser not attacked.

This marks a significant change for Google. As to date, there are no known reports of a zero-day attack ever hitting Chrome in the wild, and at the previous three years' contests, Chrome was the only browser to escape unscathed. With Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari all being brought down by exploits.

Final results from Pwn2Own 2012: 1 Chrome and 1 Internet Explorer 0day from @VUPEN and 1 Firefox 0day from @_snagg and @_dvorak_. @VUPEN took 1st place netting $60k while @_snagg, and @_dvorak_ too 2nd places netting $30k.

Google also paid out $60k to Sergey Glazunov, a regular Chrome bug hunter, who during the first day of the contest, demonstrated an exploit that completely bypassed Chrome's sandbox. This exploit was later fixed and detailed by Google's Chrome team in a security update.

Google Offering Up To $1million In Rewards For Chrome Exploits At CanSecWest

Google may come under fire for many things but you have to admit when it comes to security of its browser they tend to put their money where there, well security is. The company has continually showed its willingness to pay up when it comes to bugs, exploits and hacks, consistently extending funding for the Chromium Security Rewards program.

This year Google wants to go even further. At the upcoming CanSecWest security conference, Google will once again sponsor rewards for Google Chrome exploits.  The aim of the program is simple: Google feels they have a big learning opportunity when working with security researchers and receiving full end-to-end exploits. Not only can the Google team then fix the bugs, but they can studying the vulnerability and exploit techniques used by security teams to can enhance mitigations, automated testing, and sandboxing. This enables us better protection for end users.

To up the ante, and of course provide some extra incentive for researchers to share their exploits, Google has upped the ante from their standard reward program and past bonuses given at CanSecWest. This year they will directly sponsor up to $1 million worth of rewards in the following categories:

• $60,000 - “Full Chrome exploit”: Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence using only bugs in Chrome itself.
• $40,000 - “Partial Chrome exploit”: Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence using at least one bug in Chrome itself, plus other bugs. For example, a WebKit bug combined with a Windows sandbox bug.
• $20,000 - “Consolation reward, Flash / Windows / other”: Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence that does not use bugs in Chrome. For example, bugs in one or more of Flash, Windows or a driver. These exploits are not specific to Chrome and will be a threat to users of any web browser. Although not specifically Chrome’s issue, we’ve decided to offer consolation prizes because these findings still help us toward our mission of making the entire web safer.

There will be multiple rewards offered per category, up to the $1 million limit, on a first-come-first served basis. There is no splitting of winnings or “winner takes all.” Google will require each set of exploit bugs to be reliable, fully functional end to end, disjoint, of critical impact, present in the latest versions and genuinely “0-day,” i.e. not known to us or previously shared with third parties. Contestant’s exploits must be submitted to and judged by Google before being submitted anywhere else.

This is a new program for Google, who withdrew their sponsorship from the annual Pwn2Own contest over concerns that contestants are allowed to enter Pwn2Own without having to reveal the full exploits to software vendors. Full exploits have been handed over in previous years, but it’s an explicit non-requirement in this year’s contest which Google felt was unacceptable.

Chrome will still be on the list of Pwn2Own targets, which also includes Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox. However, there won't be the bonus bounty offered last year.

Google Finally Launches Chrome For Android

It may sound a bit odd to say, but today Google has officially announced the launch of the Chrome web browser for Android devices.

Google’s Chrome browser and Android mobile operating system may have gone public in the same year but they haven’t shared cross compatibility until now. Chrome for Android is a beta which for now is limited to Android 4.0 devices.

The new software looks and acts much like the desktop version and because its connected to a users Google sign-in, users can get their personalized browsing experience transferred directly to their phone. That means you can see open tabs and synced bookmarks from the desktop version transferred over to Android.

Chrome is now available in Beta from Android Market, in select countries and languages for phones and tablets with Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich.

Firefox With Bing Debuts

The folks over at Mozilla have released a new customized version of Firefox that, instead of being Google-centric, focuses use on Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Dubbed "Firefox with Bing," the new custom release uses a Firefox 7.01 foundation and features Bing as the default search engine in both the search box and in the browser's "Awesome Bar." Firefox with Bing also sets Bing.com as the browser's home page.

It is unclear whether the move to Bing is a step away from Google or if it is simply a move to offer users more options. Mozilla's lucrative contract with Google comes up for renewal in a few weeks and this move might be one to replace those contracts. Google has been working hard to develop their own strong following with Chrome which according to StatCounter data suggests that, on a global basis at least, has been out Firefox with a market share of 26.22% versus 26.16%. Chrome has showed continued growth through the year while Firefox has slipped.

Bing trails far behind Google in terms of overall search numbers. comScore reports Bing's U.S. search share was 14.7%, behind both Google, with 64.8%, and Yahoo, which held a 15.5% share in September.

Google Ups The Ante At Pwn2Own 2011 Offers $20k For Chrome Hack

Google reportedly raised the stakes for this years Pwn2Own hacking contest, offering up an additional $20,000 for anyone that successfully hacks into Google Chrome.

Organized by the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) team at security researchers TippingPoint, the 5th annual Pwn2Own 2011 contest pits security teams against some of your favors operating systems equipped with the webs best browsers as well as some of our favorite smartphones. This year the contest will offer up to $125,000 in prizes ($105k plus Google's bonus) for the teams that find and exploit security holes in Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox, as well as in Windows Phone 7, iOS, Blackberry 6 and Android.

To walk off with Google's $20,000 the researchers must find and exploit two vulnerabilities in Google's code and successfully break out of the browser's protective sandbox on Pwn2Own's first day. Only on the second and third days of the contest can researchers employ a non-Chrome bug, say one in Windows, to break out of the sandbox. A successful attack on the second and third days will still put $20,000 in the researcher's pocket, but only $10,000 of that will come from Google; TippingPoint will pony up the other $10,000.

Charlie Miller, the only researcher to have won Pwn2Own prizes three consecutive years, wouldn't commit last week to trying again, but on Wednesday he noticed the $20,000 for Chrome.

"Pwn2own now offering 20k for attack on Chrome," said Miller on Twitter. "Must be hard, glad Mac OS X doesn't sandbox their browser."

It would be great to see if Miller has anything up his sleeve for Chrome and the additional bounty might just be whats needed to entice him to enter again this year.

The contest will be taking place on the 9th, 10th, and 11th of March, 2011 in Vancouver, BC during the CanSecWest conference. This blog post will be updated as the contest plays out, but for real-time updates you can follow either @thezdi or @aaronportnoy on twitter or search for the hashtag #pwn2own.

Firefox Dethrones Internet Explorer, In Europe Anyways

According to data compiled by web analytics company StatCounter, Firefox bumped Internet Explorer (IE) as the dominant browser in Europe at the end of 2010. According to the numbers compiled by StatCounter's research arm StatCounter Global Stats during December 38.11% of internet page views involved Mozilla's Firefox web browser, while Internet Explorer fell back to second place with 37.52%. Google Chrome made a strong showing coming in third place at 14.58%.

"This is the first time that IE has been dethroned from the number one spot in a major territory," commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. "This appears to be happening because Google's Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share."

Google Chrome is gaining market share in Europe which shows with their strong third place ranking. The 14.58% share Google Chrome holds is nearly triple that of 2009 which in comparison was 5.06% in December last year. "We are probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft, to offer EU users a choice and menu of browsers from March last," added Aodhan Cullen.

The news comes on the heels of reports that IE lost 1.4 percentage points of overall usage share in December which accounts for one of the largest one-month decline in more than two years. Chrome was again the prime beneficiary of IE's slide, as Google's browser reached the 10% milestone worldwide for the first time ever. According to Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Net Applications, IE's total share fell to 57.1%, another record low for the Microsoft-made browser. IE has lost 5.6 percentage points in the last 12 months, and 10.7 points since IE8 was introduced in March 2009.

Google Teams With Sony, Intel To Introduce Google TV

Google may have revolutionized the way we search the web but can they do the same for the way we watch TV? That is goal of a recently announced join venture with partners Logitech, Sony and Intel on the development of Google TV.

Announced at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Google TV looks to combine the entire Web and all available TV content in one place, with one interface – eliminating the need to move back and forth between multiple screens.

Google TV devices will be based on the Android platform running the Google Chrome web browser. Users can access all of their usual TV channels as well as a world of Internet and cloud-based information and applications, including rich Adobe Flash based content – all from the comfort of their own living room and with the same simplicity as browsing the web. Devices will be coupled with the Intel Atom processor CE4100, Intel's latest system-on-a-chip designed specifically for consumer electronics, the new platform will offer home theater quality A/V performance.

Sony and Logitech have already committed to delivering products based on the new Intel Atom processor and running Google TV. Those new devices are slated for launch later this year.

Logitech will be building a companion box featuring a special remote control, along with a wireless keyboard for the system while Sony announced plans to introduce "Sony Internet TV," the World's first TV lineup incorporating the Google TV platform. The first models are planned to be introduced in the U.S. market in the fall of 2010 with the lineup featuring both a standalone TV model and set top box-type unit incorporating a Blu-ray Disc drive.

Additionally Google TV will be available to Dish Network customers through an optimized Google TV DVR which allows for a seamlessly experience that integrates traditional TV and web content.

Google TV devices will be sold at Best Buy locations nationwide later this year.

Read More:

Official Google Blog - Announcing Google TV: TV meets web. Web meets TV
Sony - Sony To Introduce Sony Internet TV
Intel - Industry Leaders Announce Open Platform to Bring Web to TV
Reuters.com - Google, Sony, Intel join on Web television project
Wired.com - Google Introduces Google TV, New Android OS
Logitech - Logitech + Google TV

Google Paying You To Find Chrome Security Flaws

Google recently announced a new program that will pay you to find security flaws in the Google Chrome browser.

In a post to the Chromium project's blog , Chrome security team Chris Evans, said the company will be offering  a $500 bounty on any new run of the mill bug found, but that "particularly severe or particularly clever" bugs would reap rewards of $1,337 each.

To be eligible for the reward you must

1. Be the first reporter of a given issue that was a  previously unaware bug. In the event of a duplicate submission, the earliest filed bug report in the bug tracker is considered the first report.
2. File your bug through the Chromium bug tracker (under the template "Security Bug") to qualify for consideration.

What bugs are eligible?

• Any security bug from either  Google Chrome or the Chromium open source project may be considered. With more focus being given to High and Critical impact bugs, but any clever vulnerability at any severity might get a reward.
• Bugs from third party components such as WebKit, libxml, image libraries, compression libraries, etc might be eligible but third-party plugins and extensions are ineligible. 
• All bugs will be reviewed by a panel of Google team members which includes Adam Barth, Chris Evans, Neel Mehta, SkyLined and Michal Zalewski.

In a bit of irony Google give kudos to the folks at Mozilla for their idea as it was the success if their long-running and successful vulnerability reward program that led Google to create their own.

Google Chrome Now Supports 1,500+ Extensions

Google has released the latest version of their Chrome web browser for Windows full support for the more than 1,500 extension in the Chrome extension gallery. Linux user don't fret as extensions are enabled on the beta channel. And for those using Google Chrome for Mac, hang tight — Google has said they are working on bringing extensions, bookmark sync and more to the beta ASAP!

In addition to adding full extension support Google also announced that Windows based version of Google Chrome will now add bookmark sync. Bookmark sync keeps your Google Chrome bookmarks synchronized and up-to-date across several computers, without needing to manually recreate your bookmarks every time you switch computers. To read more on bookmark sync, check out this handy guide.

Personally I can't wait to give Google Chrome another trial. I'm a die hard Firefox fan and haven't tried Chrome in some time. I love my Firefox extensions and couldn't see living without them so it will be nice to see what extensions Chrome has. If you're on a PC and haven't tried Google Chrome yet, or like me haven't tested it in some time, you can download Google Chrome and give all these new features a whirl.

Extensions you might like:
Here are five extension we are getting ready to load and try.

1. Zemanta -  this blogging extension looks like a useful add-on for any blogger. It adds an easy to use dashboard for adding content to most all popular blogging platforms.
2. AdBlock - we all know what this is, but if you don't its a great extension for removing scripts and ads from pages
3. Clickable Links - make all links formatted or not clickable, this is handy for quick easy browsing for sites that don't auto populate links
4. eBay Extension - I love eBaying so I'm dying to test the features packed into this one
5. AddThis - I use this extension daily from within Firefox. You get a quick easy way to send bookmarks, links, Tweets or posts to many popular social media sites.
   

Google Chrome Adds Extensions, Betas For Mac And Linux

Google has finally officially released beta version of the Chrome browser for both Linux and Mac platforms. The company has also officially announced the beta of extension for Google Chrome for Windows and Linux.

Google Chrome for Mac (Beta)
Google says they have worked hard on Google Chrome for Mac to get it right, and they also claim that it is much faster. Download Google Chrome for Mac

We’ve been working hard to deliver a first-class browser for the Mac — it took longer than we expected, but we hope the wait was worth it! We wanted Google Chrome< to feel at home on the Mac, so we’ve focused on uniting our clean, simple design with subtle animations and effects to create a snappy and satisfying browsing experience on OS X. As you might expect, the speed of Google Chrome for Mac is something we’re very proud of. If you have a Mac, try installing the beta and see how fast it launches — there’s hardly even time for the icon in the dock to bounce!

For more details on this beta release of Google Chrome for Mac, read on in the Google Mac blog or watch this video from one of our engineers, Mike Pinkerton:






Google Chrome for Linux (Beta)

Google enlisted the aid of more than 50 developers from the open source community to finally release their first Google Chrome Beta for Linux. The beta works with both  Gnome and KDE, and is updated via the normal system package manager. Google says the beta has been developed as a true open source project, using public mailing lists, IRC channels, bug tracker, code repository, and continuous build and test farm. Google invites you to download and try the Linux version of Google Chrome 

(note if you've already installed the dev channel version, you may need to uninstall that before installing the beta version -- we tried to make that work smoothly, but a few rough edges remain.)

Extensions in Google Chrome for Windows and Linux (Beta)

Google topped all the beta news with the most exciting feature, the addition of extensions for both the Windows and Linux platforms (sorry Mac guys). Extensions are one of the most requested features for Google Chrome and one of the main reasons I've been avoiding the browser.




Today Google officially opened the extension gallery, which, as of now, contains almost 400 extensions! Chrome users can browse and download extensions via the extension gallery. As of now they aren't categorized which makes browsing a bit painful, however its likely that Google will make the page a little more user friendly as more and more extensions are added.

For developers looking to build and upload an extension Google has listed a limited set of restrictions and says extensions will be available to users immediately will only a few manual reviews in limited situations.

New Light Weight Chrome OS Available

A UK student and programmer known as Hexxeh has developed a new slimmed down version of Google's Chrome OS. This new 300MB version only requires a 1GB drive compared to most other version floating around the web which typically require 4GBs or more.

Hexxeh's Web site offers instructions on how to install the lighter Chromium build on Windows, Mac and Linux machines. You can also find detailed instructions over at Make Use Of.

Acer Plans To Be The First To Launch Chrome OS Netbook In 2010

Digitimes today reported that Acer plans to launch a Chrome OS based netbook in 2H10.According to the report Acer chairman JT Wang expressed confidence that Acer will be the first vendor to officially launch Chrome-based netbook to the end user market.

Acer has been well known to be an early adopter as they were first first-tier vendor to launch a Google Android-based netbook in the market.

Acer might have some competition in being the first company to launch a Chrome OS based unit as a group of Dell employees have already created a build that is compatible with the Dell Mini 10. Dell hasn't officially said they are working on build however it is reasonable to assume that given enough support they would be interested in taking up the project.

Google's Chromium OS source code was released to the public late late month with Google pormising that new devices would be ready by this time next year.