FILES DOWNLOAD: google chrome

Showing posts with label google chrome. Show all posts

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Notification Center, Google Now Cards, App Launcher Land In Chrome For Linux (Dev Channel)

The latest Google Chrome unstable (dev channel) for Linux was updated recently, getting the Aura UI stack, Notification Center and App Launcher back.

The Aura UI, Notification Center and App Launcher were added to Chrome for Linux a couple of months ago but they was removed shortly after that.

Aura, the new graphical stack for Chrome, was initially used on Chrome OS, then on Chrome for Windows and Mac and now it's finally also available for the Chrome Linux browser.

Aura handles the rendering, compositing and so on, using the GPU when possible. For technical details, see THIS page.

Update: February 6, 2014: these features were removed once again from Google Chrome Unstable for Linux (version: 34.0.1825.4-1). Hopefully they will return soon.

Update February 27, 2014: the Aura UI along with the Notification Center, App Launcher, etc. are one again available in the latest Google Chrome Dev Channel Linux builds (Version 35.0.1862.2 dev aura):

Chrome Notification Center

With this update, Chrome (unstable) for Linux uses rich notifications: they can display formatted text, images and include direct actions so for instance you can directly reply to an email - well, at least in theory because I couldn't get any interactive notifications to work, for instance Gmail refused to display notifications for new messages for some reason.

Chrome Notification Center with Google Now cards on Ubuntu

Also, the Notification Center that first appeared on Windows and Mac is now available for Linux. This is a place that keeps track of your unread notifications so you don't miss any important notifications. On Linux, the Notification Center uses a tray icon / appindicator, allowing you to see the unread emails or set the notifications in a "Do not disturb" mode:

From the Chrome Notification Center you can select which website / application is allowed to send desktop notifications:

Another cool new feature that's now available in Chrome (unstable) for Linux is the addition of Google Now cards (see screenshot with Chrome Notification Center above). Basically, if you use Google Now on your mobile device, you can now see the Now cards on your Desktop. That only works if you're signed into Chrome obviously, and the notifications can include weather, commute traffic, event reminders and so on.

The Google Chrome Notification Center should be enabled by default if you're using the latest unstable build.

Chrome App Launcher

Another new feature that landed on Linux with this update is the App Launcher. The App Launcher displays your Chrome apps and extensions in a menu that's available outside the browser. You can even pin it to the Unity launcher as you can see in the screenshot below:

The App Launcher is currently not enabled by default on Chrome (unstable) for Linux. To activate it, open chrome://flags in Chrome, search for "Enable the app launcher" and enable it, then restart the browser.

Then, to get the menu to show up, install a Chrome packaged app from the web store (it must be installed from "For Your Desktop").

If you already had some Chrome packaged apps installed, the App Launcher won't show up. To get it to show up, either use a new, clean profile or simply uninstall all the Chrome packaged apps you may have installed, then follow the steps above.

Download Google Chrome unstable (dev channel)

Download Google Chrome (make sure you select "Dev channel" when downloading)

Normally, if you've installed any version of Chrome, you should already have the Google repository added to your sources, so if you use Ubuntu, simply running an update should allow you to install the latest Google Chrome Unstable:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install google-chrome-unstable

Note that installing Google Chrome dev channel on Linux will remove Chrome stable / beta.

Install Fresh Player Plugin In Ubuntu Via PPA (Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox)

Not so long ago I was telling you about Fresh Player Plugin, a new wrapper that's currently in alpha, which allows Linux users to use Pepper Flash (which is bundled with Google Chrome) in Firefox and other NPAPI-compatible web browsers.

Well, in just over a week, Fresh Player Plugin evolved a lot and in my test, I actually didn't encounter any major issues: the sound works, video playback works with YouTube and other websites, full-screen videos work with multi-monitor setups, etc. So I've decided to upload Fresh Player Plugin to the main failsdownloads PPA so you can test it easily and stay up to date with the latest code from GIT.

As a reminder, the latest Adobe Flash Player versions are available on Linux only through Google Chrome, while other browsers are stuck with version 11.2.

The Adobe Flash Player plugin that's bundled with Google Chrome is in the form of a PPAPI (or Pepper Plugin API) plugin and Mozilla isn't interested in adding support for it.

That's why Rinat Ibragimov decided to create this wrapper so Firefox users can use the latest Pepper Flash from Google Chrome.

Also, the Fresh Player Plugin page has an important security note that you should read: "[...] the API itself doesn't make any sandboxing, it only allows sandboxed implementations. This particular implementation doesn't implement any sandbox. That means that if any malicious code breaks through plugin security, there are no additional barriers".

Install Fresh Player Plugin in Ubuntu via PPA

Important notes:

Fresh Player Plugin is installed under /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ and so it works with Firefox but it may not work with other NPAPI-compatible browsers. If you want to use it with some other web browser, you're on your own;
the plugin is still in early alpha stages and even though in my test it seems that most stuff works, it may not work for you. Also, it probably only works with a limited number of websites right now. You should only install it for testing purposes for now!

1. Install Fresh Player Plugin in Ubuntu (via PPA), by using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freshplayerplugin

You can also download the deb from HERE but installing it without adding the PPA means you won't get updates!

2. Fresh Player Plugin is just a wrapper for libpepflashplayer.so so it needs this file which is bundled with Google Chrome. The easiest way to get this file is to simply install Google Chrome Stable - download it from here, then install it (should also work with Chrome Beta and Unstable). That's it!

There are other ways of getting libpepflashplayer.so: via the installer available in the official Ubuntu 14.04+ repositories and via the Pepper Flash PPA which is also available for older Ubuntu versions - once installed, then you'll need to create a symbolic link for Pepper Flash to /opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so or see step 3 for how to change the path to it.

3. Optional (only use it if you want to tweak various settings): configure Fresh Player Plugin

Here you'll find an example Fresh Player Plugin configuration - to use it, save this file, rename it to "freshwrapper.conf" and copy it under ~/.config/

Use this configuration file to change the path to libpepflashplayer.so or to tweak the sound buffer if you have shuttering sound.

The configuration options available in this file are pretty self-explanatory - you can configure the lower and higher bound for the audio buffer size, enable/disable accelerated rendering ("enable_3d"), change the device scale (useful for high DPI screens), set the fullscreen width or height if you have issues with this, change the path to libpepflashplayer.so along with command line arguments (like enabling hardware video decoding).

To report bugs or help with its development, see the Fresh Player Plugin GitHub page.

Google Chrome Stable (35) For Linux Updated With Aura UI Stack, Notification Center And App Launcher

Google Chrome stable for Linux was updated recently (version 35) with important changes: Aura is now used for the user interface (replacing GTK2) and also, a Notification Center and App Launcher were added though the latter is not enabled by default.

Aura

The latest Google Chrome stable for Linux uses Aura (instead of GTK2, which was previously used), a new graphical stack which was initially used on Chrome OS, then on Chrome for Windows and Mac and now finally on Linux.

Aura handles the rendering, compositing and so on, using the GPU when possible. For technical details, see THIS page.

Notification Center

One of the most important features in this new Google Chrome release for Linux is the Notification Center. This is a place that keeps track of your unread notifications so you don't miss any important notifications.

On Linux, the Notification Center uses a tray icon / appindicator, allowing you to see the unread emails or set the notifications in a "Do not disturb" mode:

From the Chrome Notification Center you can select which website / application is allowed to send desktop notifications:

The Notification Center icon isn't displayed until you receive some notifications. There is a way (most probably a bug) to get the Notification Center icon to be displayed even if you don't have any notifications: press F11 twice.

Another cool new feature that's now available in Chrome for Linux along with the new Notification Center, is the addition of Google Now cards. Or it should be, because even tough this feature used to work for me in Google Chrome dev, it doesn't work in Google Chrome stable on my computer (so the screenshot below is from an old Google Chrome dev version):

Chrome App Launcher

Yet another new feature available on Linux with the latest Google Chrome stable is the App Launcher.

The Chrome App Launcher displays your Chrome apps in a menu that's available outside the browser and you can even pin it to the Unity launcher for instance:

The App Launcher is currently not enabled by default on Google Chrome stable for Linux. To activate it, open chrome://flags in Chrome, search for "Enable the app launcher" and enable it, then restart the browser.

Then, to get the menu to show up, you must install a Chrome packaged app from the web store (you must install an application from the "For Your Desktop" category).

As you can see, at least in my test, the latest Google Chrome stable for Linux is not so stable and there are quite a few glitches, so I'm not exactly satisfied with this release. Here's a round-up (updated):

the Chrome Notification Center icon is not displayed by default and I guess that's the desired behavior but pressing F11 twice reveals the icon when it shouldn't;
the notifications are always displayed on the main monitor in multi-monitors setups;
Google Chrome is missing from Dash on my Ubuntu 14.04 system and couldn't figure out why yet;
while the Google Now cards used to work a while back, they stopped working with the latest Google Chrome stable for Linux, at least for me. Everything is set up correctly on my end since Google Now previously worked on my computer (using Google Chrome dev);
NPAPI support was removed from Google Chrome 35 for Linux (and all the other platforms will soon follow!) - that means that Java (both OpenJDK/JRE and Oracle Java), Silverlight (Pipelight), the old Adobe Flash and any other NPAPI plugins don't work in Google Chrome 35 for Linux.

Did you try the latest Google Chrome stable for Linux? Did you encounter any issues?

Download Google Chrome stable for Linux

Fresh Player Plugin: Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox And Other NPAPI-Compatible Browsers

Fresh Player Plugin is a new (alpha!) wrapper that allows Linux users to use Pepper Flash from Google Chrome in Firefox, Opera and other NPAPI-compatible browsers.

As you probably know, the latest Adobe Flash Player versions are available on Linux only through Google Chrome, while other browsers are stuck with version 11.2.

The Adobe Flash Player plugin that's bundled with Google Chrome is in the form of a PPAPI (or Pepper Plugin API) plugin and Mozilla isn't interested in adding support for it.

For this reason, Rinat Ibragimov (who's also behind libvdpau-va-gl, a VDPAU driver that, among others, brings Adobe Flash Player hardware acceleration on Intel Graphics) has started working on a Pepper Flash NPAPI wrapper which aims to bring Google Chrome's Pepper Flash to Firefox, Opera, etc., called Fresh Player Plugin.

Fresh Player Plugin is in early alpha and still needs work! Update: In my test with the latest Fresh Player Plugin from GIT, both YouTube and DailyMotion videos worked (Adblock has to be disabled or else the videos won't start playing on YouTube) but the sound was very choppy (and that's a PulseAudio issue which Rinat wasn't able to fix yet).

So it can't really replace Adobe Flash for Firefox users yet but still, the project is very promising:

If you can help with its development, check out the Fresh Player Plugin GitHub page.

It's also worth mentioning, in case you didn't know, that Mozilla is working on its own Flash replacement: Shumway, which is open source and uses HTML5. But, like the new Fresh Player Plugin, Shumway needs a lot of work until it can fully replace Adobe Flash too.

Test Pepper Flash Plugin

Currently, to test Fresh Player Plugin (remember, it's in early development stages and its functionality is limited; it doesn't work with many websites, including YouTube!) you must build it from source. The instructions below are a rough guide on how to compile it in Ubuntu but it doesn't guarantee it will work so unless you have experience with building packages from source, I suggest you wait until Pepper Flash Plugin becomes more stable, then I'll upload it to a PPA.

1. Install the required dependencies:

sudo apt-get install build-essential git cmake pkg-config libglib2.0-dev libasound2-dev libx11-dev libgl1-mesa-dev liburiparser-dev libcairo2-dev libpango1.0-dev libpangocairo-1.0-0 libpangoft2-1.0-0 libfreetype6-dev libgtk2.0-dev libxinerama-dev libconfig-dev libevent-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev

2. Build Fresh Player Plugin

cd
git clone https://github.com/i-rinat/freshplayerplugin.git
cd freshplayerplugin && mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

3. Once it's built, copy libfreshwrapper-pepperflash.so from the build folder to the browser plugin directory. For Firefox, copy it to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

4. Fresh Player Plugin is just a wrapper for Pepper Flash from Google Chrome so you'll need libpepflashplayer.so. The Pepper Flash path is hardcoded to /opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so and to get libpepflashplayer.so under that location you'll have to do one of the following:

install Google Chrome stable (that's it!); or
if you're using Google Chrome unstable, create a symbolic link from /opt/google/chrome-unstable/PepperFlash to /opt/google/chrome/ ; or
on Ubuntu, you can install Pepper Flash using 2 other ways: via the installer available in the official Ubuntu 14.04 repositories and via the Pepper Flash PPA - once installed, then you'll need to create a symbolic link for Pepper Flash to /opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so

Reminder: Fresh Player plugin should only be used for testing purposes for now.

Update: you can now install Fresh Player Plugin in Ubuntu via PPA!

via reddit, thanks to BurningFox!

FILES DOWNLOAD

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Notification Center, Google Now Cards, App Launcher Land In Chrome For Linux (Dev Channel)

Chrome Notification Center

Chrome App Launcher

Download Google Chrome unstable (dev channel)

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Install Fresh Player Plugin In Ubuntu Via PPA (Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox)

Install Fresh Player Plugin in Ubuntu via PPA

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Google Chrome Stable (35) For Linux Updated With Aura UI Stack, Notification Center And App Launcher

Aura

Notification Center

Chrome App Launcher

Download Google Chrome stable for Linux

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Fresh Player Plugin: Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox And Other NPAPI-Compatible Browsers

Test Pepper Flash Plugin