Here’s a lovely… truly lovely video depicting the key differentiators of the Google Chrome browser.

On April 12th Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt was interviewed and took open questions about Google which included their Chrome OS.

The talk was based at Atmosphere, a presentation to CIOs about cloud computing.

Thankfully reports have come in of a better bookmark manager coming to Google’s Chrome browser. The current offering leaves a lot to be desired when comparing to the features available in the browsers offered by the big players in this arena.

The Download Squad have put together a handy video documenting the features which have started appearing in the Chromium source code. The updates appear to make the manager fit in much better with the rest of the application, with the manager opening in a new tab which items can be drag and dropped to.

We hope that this manager will be moved to the dev, beta and then stable versions of Chrome in the future.

For the second year in a row Google’s Chrome browser has come out on top following the annual Pwn2Own contest at the CanSecWest conference.

The competition revolves around security experts and researches being given hardware, OS and software to try and hack… and if the succeed in doing so they get to keep the kit.

In the browser competition IE, Safari and Opera were all taken quite quickly whilst Chrome proved to be a much more tough competition and after it ended no-one had managed to compromise the browser.

Other pieces of kit to be succesffuly hacked include an iPhone 3GS which gave up little resistance and was compromised in seconds along with a Macbook and a Windows 7 set-up.

Jolicloud, a web based OS based on similar principles as Google’s Chrome have switched their rendering engine from Mozilla’s Prism to Chrome.

The Cloud based OS has customised Chromium (the open source version of Google Chrome) for use in it’s backend which gives it greater HTML5 support for it’s 600+ applications.

The release of Robby (the codename for this release of Jolicloud) does not see Chrome replace Mozilla’s Firefox as the Linux distribution’s default browser however.

If you want to get a Google Chrome OS powered netbook NOW then you have to look no further than the live list of supporting hardware at The Chromium Projects site.

The list is compiled and updated by folk who are using the OS everyday and it supplies information on which netbooks, notebooks and laptops support the Chrome OS and to what degree. They give details on how the hardware supports various key features including WiFi, Ethernet and Suspend/Resume. They also leave caveats and descriptive comments to help people wanting to get their hands on Chrome right now.

The list includes proving heavyweights in the netbook world such as the Asus Eee 100x series which sport  10.1 inch displays and the Dell Mini 10v.

The developer channel of Chrome for Mac now has extensions. This is a big win for those on Macs who are using Chrome as this was really one of the sticking points of many Firefox users (who have Firefox Add ons).

This jumps Chrome up a notch on where it was before and really should start taking the fight to other browsers on Macs (yup that’s all those funky geeky cool-dressed folk drinking Green Tea… oh and those with too much money).

Those wanting extensions for Chrome on Macs should use the develper channel

Of course it should be noted that the Dev Channel can lead to its own instabilities but for us the extensions make usage of Chrome just so much more than it was without them. For a glimpse as to some of the great extensions already available check out the official gallery.

Chrome is end user’s 3rd most popular browser according to the internet statistics firm Net Applications. Although the browser clocked up only 4.63% usage it marked a milestone as it put the newcomer 3rd and infront of Apple’s Safari browser which previously held that position.

Still way out in front was Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer applications but both these parties will be more than just curiously glancing back at the Google browser. It seems that with the mainstream addition of extensions to the browser (comparable in some ways to Firefox’s add-ons) and it’s core underlying speed that huge numbers of users are not only trying Chrome but migrating completely.

So… Firefox, watch your back!

So it looks like as well as Google being very specific about the specs for what hardware will be needed to support the Chrome OS they are also “in bed” with a hardware manufacturers putting together their own google branded Chrome OS powered netbook.

The specs initially leaked over at IB Times seem to say that the machine will be fairly beefy. The rumours point to a 10.1 inch TFT multi touch display (HD ready of course) with an NVIDIA Tegra chipset all powered by an ARM CPU. In terms of connectivity the rumours point to the usual suspects of WiFI, Bluetooth, wired ethernet and 3G. There are also USB slots, a standard 3.5mm headphone sokcet and multi form memory card reader…. oh and a built in webcam. There’ll be 2GB of RAM available and a 64GB SSD storage. We’re not quite sure if this SSD figure is right due to Google mentioning that the OS is mainly to be used with most data being stored in the cloud but perhaps they’ve made advances in this area thanks to HTML 5 offline storage capabilities.

The release time for this is still Q4 2010.

All this is planned to come at a sub $300 cost to the end user and may even come cheaper if bought with a mobile contract in the same way that mobile handsets are subsidised today.

Today Google presented and demonstrated their Chrome OS at an event in Mountain View, CA. We were unfortunate not to attend but viewed this via a webcast… here are the key points as far as we see it.

Chrome OS for Dummies

Launch Date

Chrome OS is not launching today… but the source code as it stands is available now to download as Chrome is completely open source. Google expect the launch to be late 2010, before the holiday season.

Chrome Browser

• The Chrome Browser is essentially the OS. It is the only application that is really running.
• The browser is focused on the three S’s… speed, security and simplicity.
• Extensions for Chrome are very close to being available soon. These will be written in HTML and Javascript and Google manage the updating of these.
• Chrome is built to take advantage of multi-core systems and have communication with media peripherals such as cameras.

Overview of The Chrome OS

As with the Chrome browser the OS is also focused on speed, simplicity and security.

Speed

• Boot time should be real fast… comparable to turning on a TV. During the demo boot time is about 7 seconds
• The Chrome browser is already fast… Chrome running on Chrome OS will be even faster than it is on other platforms

Simplicity

• All applications are WebApps… Chrome OS will only run web applications
• Because of this there will be no need to install/maintain your software
• All applicaton and OS data (wallpaper etc) is held in the cloud.
• When you insert a USB drive this opens a new tab in Chrome… you can view files including media and office files. If you click on an Excel file this can open a new tab with a web app that supports that file type

Security

• Because all applications are WebApps with Google Chrome OS there is a fundamental change to how security can be implemented
• When system is booted the system checks it’s applications cryptographic signatures. If it doesn’t like what it sees it re-downloads the OS, re-installs and reboots. Because your data is held in the cloud your settings are saved. The locally cached data is also saved.
• All locally stored data is encrypted.

Other details

• Chrome OS is open source… Google appreciate all the  hard work and help that they’ve had from many open source projects such as Linux and want to pay them back.
• Google are targeting the larger netbook space… clam-shell type devices with full size keyboards and touchpads.
• Hardware… users cannot just install on any device. Google are looking to give amazing experiences and as such are specifying the hardware components that are needed to support Chrome OS… though if you have certain netbooks which are available today and a screwdriver then you might be able to get it running
• Prices… similar to today’s prices. There is no target price.
• What netbook was on the demo… off the shelf Eee PC
• How do hardware chaps get involved… documentation is available to say which components are supported/needed
• What about an app store… Goggle will be looking at solving discovery of these app but wouldn’t go into detail
• Some apps are not available on the web, what about these…  Google looking to deliver a companion device, they expect folks to have a secondary device at home.
• HTML5 video and audio codecs + flash shall all be supported
• Further hardware details to be expected in middle of 2010
• What about offline access… primarily designed for use with connectivity but will be able to cache data. Also apps that use html5 offline capabilities will of course be able to do so.
• Can Chrome OS be run in a VM… Yes, Google’s developers do this and users today could build code and run within VM
• What about anodroid apps… these will not run on chrome
• other hardware… 2010 will be only notebook focused
• business models… Google are working with partners but Chrome OS is completely free.
• printing… Google say they will have an innovative approach to printing, more to be said later about this.