Shiny new browser
Google recently released a version of Chrome for the Android 4 OS. While it is always good to see the latest Web technology being extended to the (relatively confined) domain of mobile devices, one of the most welcome features of this latest mobile browser is its comprehensive developer support. With the help of a USB cable and a suitably configured PC, you can now effortlessly develop eye-watering mobile Web experiences. Included are all the usual favourites, such as DOM navigation, real-time DOM editing, real-time CSS editing, CSS enable/disable, call tracing, script debugging and so on.
The new Chrome is still in beta, and only available for the latest incarnation of Android, so the impact will not be felt as widely as other browsers. No doubt this will change quickly as Google have an aggressive roll-out schedule.
There are a few important points to note:
- Those concerned with privacy should note that there is a report that the browser continues to use GPS when it is running in the background.
- Meanwhile, those concerned with security will be concerned to hear that SSL support is broken.
- There are some reports of the browser crashing. This would not be unusual for beta software. Take care if using Chrome to do anything important.
- Flash is not supported, and will not be supported. Flash for mobile is dead.
- You can detect a Mobile Chrome request by looking for “CrMo/” in the User Agent header.
- The address bar is permanent. You can’t hide it. Some mobile site designers will be very annoyed…
Watch this space.