Linux News

you are here: Home Older News Chrome 13 Stable as Google Pays 17K for Bug Fixes.

20 -May -2012 - 22:44
Thursday, 04 August 2011 17:53

Chrome 13 Stable as Google Pays 17K for Bug Fixes.

By:  Clint Boulton  

google-chrome-13-logo-300x184

Google's Chrome browser version 13 is stable, featuring Instant Pages predictive search technology, print preview for Windows and Linux machines, as well as a better omnibox. Also featuring: 30 bug fixes.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has taken Chrome browser version 13 stable (technically Chrome 13.0.782.107), fixing several bugs and turning the search engine's new Instant Pages feature on by default to the broader masses.

The next step in the Google Instant predictive search technology, Instant Pages automatically render Web pages users click on from Google searches.

To do this, Google developed a prerendering technology that prepares the top search in the background while a user chooses which link to click. This saves users another two to five seconds on typical searches.

Ideally, this technology removes the latency many Web pages exhibit when users click on them. This could in turn possibly get more people to use Chrome, which has a 13.5 percent market share worldwide, to search with the browser.

Also with Chrome 13, print preview is available for Windows and Linux users. The technology, which is as is usually the case with Chrome is not available yet for Macs, leverages Google's built-in PDF viewer and a "print to PDF" option.

Finally, the Chrome's omnibox address bar and search box has been improved to bring users back to pages they've visited before much more easily.

Users need only to type part of the Web page's address or title to find matching pages from their search history in the dropdown menu. There has been talk of the omnibox going away; clearly that's not the case in this iteration.

A major focus of the 5,200 improvements in the browser has been bug fixes. Google and participating third-party experts found and plugged 30 of them, as the search engine paid out $17,000 to bug squashers. "Miaubiz" earned $7,500 for detecting various exploits, including $1,000 each for so-called "use after free" exploits.

Sergey Glazunov, a fixture among the bug hunters, netted $3,000 total. That included $1,500 apiece for finding a cross-origin script injection and cross-origin violation in base URI handling. Peruse the complete list of found flaws and payouts here in this blog post.

In other Chrome-related news, Google is now making it possible for developers in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,  and the U.K. to complete merchant account sign up and start adding their paid apps to the Chrome Web Store.

Google, which last month made the In App Payments API to enable developers to receive payments for applications they sell in the Chrome Web Store available in 140 countries, also added the ability to target or exclude specific markets.

Specifically, Chrome Web Store developers can publish their apps only to the following regions: Argentina, Australia, Austria (new), Belgium (new), Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic (new), Denmark (new), Finland (new), France, Germany, Hong Kong (new), India, Indonesia (new), Israel (new), Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand (new), Norway (new), Philippines (new), Poland, Portugal, Russia (new), Singapore (new), Spain, Sweden (new), Switzerland (new) and the U.S. and U.K.

SOURCE