Introducing Prerendering Technology into Google's Chrome Web Browser

Giving users a more secured web browser is not just enough. That's not to say security is not important or anything like that but even if you have the world most secured web browser still, if it loads pages dauntingly slower... well I seriously doubt that anyone would be interested.

Anyway, starting with shorter release cycles, Google is certainly throwing everything at their simplified web browser called Chrome. Personally I'm not a huge fan and it had some issues in the past concerning user privacy, etc but the developers of the original Chromium are certainly adding cutting edge features, one after the other, nonetheless.

The latest one is called web page "prerendering". The technology is not invented by Google/Chrome but has been there for a while, as far as I know.

Anyhow the idea is pretty simple. Unlike with the usual behavior for the web browser where it totally depends on the user to tell him what site to load, etc but when you use the browser after enabling prerendering, it'll use algorithms to predict your next move!. Sounds a bit risky ... let me humbly give an example.

Say that you searched for Google for the term "learn GNU/Linux fast", then while the Chrome browser display the SERP result page, it'll also be working from the background and silently be loading the web page that it thinks you'll most probably click on.

Say that it cached or saved to disk the website that stands at the first in big G for that term, and the browser was actually correct about the prediction, since you did click on the the link of the first website, then you'll see an instant webpage loading! (0.00 waiting time).


But here's the thing...

Shi* happens...

Now for to prerendering to occur, it needs reasonably faster internet connection, otherwise it can easily jeopardize the user experience by making the whole process of loading a the webpage more slower than usual. For instance, let's assume that Chrome was fetching a website called "A" and it did contain a reasonable amount of data thus requiring some bandwidth. Now this is fine as long as the user chooses to click on the link of site "A" in Google.

But what if the user actually click on the site below "A" called the site "B" which is positioned 2nd. Now we have a situation where the web browser loads two websites simultaneously, one site is totally unnecessarily loaded thus making the actual site ("B" in this instance) loading more slowly (obviously). This is the most obvious issue.

Although as soon as the web browser realizes the situation, it'll stop loading the site "A" but... there's an another one.

Here's Google's own video example about it...



Say that like me, you have an internet connection with a monthly usage limit. Then by prerendering the wrong the website means unnecessary data/bandwidth usage, which is not good at all.

Anyway, from a user point of view, this is the most hardest part, prediction. Will there be a day where the computer software be able to predict all our actions, if so, then it'll wipe out the whole possibility for "free" thinking.... :/.

So, it's actually pretty interesting to watch the advancement of this prerendering technology and its success. Well I guess we'll certainly know whether its successful or not in the near future. Oh btw, this feature is proposed for the upcoming Google Chrome web browser and is also available in the Chrome Dev channels.

But not everyone will be using the Dev channels since they're actually beta versions thus won't be giving the most secured web browser version nonetheless. So, it's best to wait.

How To Install Google Chrome 12 (stable) in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal?

Ever since Google got their hands on the Chromium web browser and literally rename it to Chrome (well not entirely true) it has been expanding its "empire", with some speed I might add. We gotta give some credits to Google for choosing Chromium. It's like they've foreseen the future.

I mean, personally I hate the simplicity of Chrome yet it seems that most other are definitely favoring it. Its damn fast, loads websites faster than any other web browser, stable, plays Flash videos really well, comes with a PDF reader... what else do we need!.

But unlike with the Chromium, it's not like that Google just renames it... for instance in the past there was a rumor that the big G in fact been using the Chrome browser to spy on the users :/.

Anyhow few days ago Google updated the Chrome to its 12th version (still in stable release) which is now also available for GNU/Linux too. Although I'm personally ain't much of a Unity geek my self yet if you like Unity desktop nonetheless then you'll love a certain feature that comes with the Chrome 12.

*. libappindicator support - This is actually in its beta stage but we should give some credit to Google for recognizing the Ubuntu as something "especial" :). Now you can access few main options of the Chrome web browser by using the application indicator menus in Unity desktop (such as downloads/extensions, etc).

*. 3D CSS - I've said this before so not gonna repeat it all over again. But to be short - Chrome now has the ability to use your GPU for rendering 3D CSS animations found on web sites which should enhance the efficiency + better 3D animations in general.

*. Launch apps by using their names in ominibox.

*. Google gears have been removed.

So if you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal then you can easily install Google Chrome 12 stable by using the below commands in your Terminal.

sudo -s
echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | apt-key add -
apt-get update
apt-get install google-chrome-stable

That should do it... but remember it's still in its "stable" version. Use it at your own risk. Oh and the application indicator menus are disabled by default. If you want to enable them, then...

1. On the URL panel of Chrome type the below command and press enter.

about:flags

2. This should bring you a new tab window and from the scroll down until you see an option called "Experimental GNOME menu bar support". You should see an "Enable" button, click on it and you're done!. Enjoy!. 

Install Google Chrome in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal!

Personally I don't like the Google Chrome browser that much, because you know... it's too simplified which is also the case with Gnome but with Chrome I can always use the excellent Firefox4 :D... but with Gnome... well, I"m still looking for an alternative, OK, I'm stuck :(.

Anyway, Canonical is going to release their next major OS "update" which is the version 11.04 called the Ubuntu Natty Narwhal. Now many who simply can't wait for the next few days, have already downloaded and installed the latest & final beta version 2.

So, if you already use the Ubuntu Unity beta and want to try the Google Chrome (oh it's fast!) then you can do it easily as it was with the previous version of Ubuntu as well. 

Although the desktop have changed dramatically from the Gnome to Unity... but still other major core applications such as the Kernel and application managers are the same, so installing new applications can be done using the same old methods nonetheless.

So to install Google Chrome in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, open your Terminal and enter the below command.

sudo echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable main non-free" | sudo tee-a / etc / apt / sources.list
sudo-s
wget-q-O - https: / / dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | apt-key add -
apt-get update

To install the stable version... enter the below command.

sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable

For the beta version, enter this command.

sudo apt-get install google-chrome-beta

For all those dudes and dudes :) ... willing to take a bit of a risk and want to install the unstable/latest version... well use the next command instead.

sudo apt-get install google-chrome-unstable