For those of you that don’t already know, Google has thrown its hat into the ring of the browser wars. By “browser wars” I mean “the fight for being the only way that you can access the Internet.”

So far, Google has drawn criticism–mostly on it’s user interface though. It’s blue. I’ll discuss that in a moment.

I’ve been playing with Google Chrome for about two days now. And it’s worth using. Here’s why.

Security

Online scams and phishing (a type of online scam where you are fooled into surrendering precious information by an impostor website) have become increasingly popular topics in the last couple years.  The Internet has provided identity thieves an efficient, productive way to steal credit card information, passwords and much more.

Google has seen and has been active in thwarting this problem.  They’ve cross-referenced their massive catalog with the Internet with feedback from users and have made a blacklist available to anyone who wants to check for malicious websites in their programs.

As a tremendous benefit of having this information available, they have built in state-of-the-art security features.

First, any malicious website that has been cataloged by Google will not load.  Instead a prohibitive screen will warn you and give you an opportunity to leave before things get ugly.  This type of feature has been in Internet Explorer (boo!), Mozilla Firefox, and Safari for years now.

But most notably included is address highlighting that easily exposes what website you’re browsing, but also what mode (secure or non-secure) you are browsing in.

Take a look at this screenshot…

You can easily see that the site I’m visiting is bradkovach.com.  Since the “http://” isn’t in green, I know that I’m not communicating over a secure connection.

But take a look at this screenshot…

You can tell that I’m connecting to Facebook, but I’m connecting to the wrong site. (I should have used https://www.facebook.com instead of https://facebook.com).  It uses the color red (which has been programmed into society to signify a problem).  And it also puts a slash through the connecting protocol to let you know that something isn’t right.  Not pictured is the contents of the actual page, which are prohibitively red with two options: “Proceed anyway,” and “Back to safety.”  On this page, clicking “Proceed anyway” lets you continue to the Facebook server you specified, but Facebook does the right thing and forwards you automatically to the secured version of their 100-million-strong web app.  This demonstrates the use of

Among passive security systems that will allow users to make their own calls on safety, this is a serious, but simple step toward Grandmother-friendly site identity validation.

Speed

There have been a number of benchmarks done by independent 3rd parties that conclusively prove that Google has made the fastest browser… ever.  It can evaluate Javascript MUCH faster than any other browser  It also uses a super-fast rendering engine (WebKit) to draw the pages on your screen.  For websites that use Javascript heavily (Facebook, Gmail) this results in a significant speed boost when performing day-to-day tasks.

Chrome has also made the tab much more usable.  When Javascript grinds down one tab, the others remain usable since they are isolated by a cool computing concept called “sandboxing.”  This means that one tab could crash completely, and the others would remain independently stable.  Very cool.

Also, since Chrome is sandboxed, memory management issues have been eliminated.  Traditionally–and users of Firefox know this–browsers have been very sloppy at “garbage collection.”  This means that every time you close a tab, load a new page, etc, a fragment of the old tab/page/etc is left behind and cannot be removed from memory.  After a day of surfing, browsers can occupy upwards of 200 megabytes of memory–a hideously large amount for a web browser.

Aesthetics and Usability

First there was IE, and now there’s Google Chrome trying to reshape the browser interface paradigm.  Google has taken a new browsing tab, a fairly new browsing tool, and moved it!  Instead of appearing as a row below the address bar, they compose the title bar.  Not only does this save space, but it’s kinda handy.  When a Chrome window is maximized, a flick of the mouse toward the top of your screen will always land you at the row of tabs that you have opened.

And the most major criticism of Google Chrome so far?  It’s kinda ugly–on Windows XP.  Vista versions of Chrome look great (better than Firefox).  For the new features that GChrome brings to the table, the look of the application is a minor inconvenience.  A more translucent and space-efficient design would also help things tremendously.  But for now, it’s in beta.  Give Google some time.

In today’s modern web browser eco-system, page zooming is standard.  By page zooming, I mean that the ENTIRE page gets blown up, not just the text sizes.  Curiously absent from Google Chrome is a page zoom feature.  GChrome only supports text zooming, which is rather useless on many websites.

Plugability

One of the reasons that I enjoy Firefox more than other browsers is its dynamite extension system.  So far, Google hasn’t made a clear path to an extension API–so your useful plugins like AdBlock Plus will not exist.  Surprising, consider Google owns the two largest advertising networks on the Internet.  At some point, however, Google will hear the cries for easier extendability.

Conclusion

Google has made a browser: Google Chrome.  It’s fast, safe, and stable.  It has some minor inconveniences, but it’s a few days old.  Give it time and Google Chrome will be a serious contender in the browser arena. (Apparently, it already has a 3% market share.  WTF!?)

Try Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome/

Dear Mr. KOVACH,

Our records identify you as a man who may be required to register with Selective Service, but has not done so. You may register online via the Internet at www.sss.gov, by telephone, or indicate you are registered by completing Section A of the enclosed Registration Status Form. If you believe you are not required to register, complete Section B of the form and provide supporting evidence (copies only). Please verify and, if necessary, correct all information on the form. Sign and date the form and return it to us in the enclosed envelope within 10 days.

Failure to register with Selective Service is a Federal crime punishable by a fine and imprisonment. Men who fail to register may be unable to obtain U.S. citizenship, and are not eligible for certain Federal benefits, such as job training, student financial aid and government employment. Registration protects that eligibility. Our objective is to register you, not to have you prosecuted.

If you need help in completing the form, or have questions about registering, phone us at: 1-888-655-1825.

I’m 18 now–and I have the Gillette Fusion razor to prove it. (For the uninitiated, Gillette gives every man a free razor for his 18th birthday. I don’t know how they know that you’re turning 18, but they JUST DO.)

I received this cheery letter today. For those too impatient to read it, it kindly tried to state that I have to register for Selective Service, or I will go to jail. I muttered to myself “WHAT A PAIN!” And then, amidst the threats of prosecution, there it was: a website. A place on the Internet–where 90% of my time seems to go–where I can just fill out the form and get on with my life. Awesome, right?!

Wrong.

WHO IS IN CHARGE AT THE IT DEPARTMENT THERE? This website is a disaster. I tried to register, but I got a timeout error screen, which means a server wasn’t responding to my requests.

This poorly configured server, which has inevitably confronted 75% of all US men who’ve tried to register online, is turning away tons of traffic. And why? Because somebody forgot to check a box when the set the site up. I finally got to the website. The problem? I forgot to put “www.” in front of the address. Oops.

I finally get in and am greeted by their army of animated GIFs.

Look, US Government, if you’re going to force your country’s men to do a tedious task that SHOULD be taken care of for us, at least make the process work. By “SHOULD be taken care of for us,” I mean that they have the means to just pull our names out of a hat. Why don’t they? If they knew I’m 18, why didn’t they just REGISTER ME?

Neil Hokanson, who is more enlightened on matters patriotic, what is the answer?

Just remember–if it’s your turn to go through this rigamarole, don’t forget the www.

Making it to Digg/Popular is the dream of many. Traffic spikes, thousands of visitors, and poor planning can cause catastrophic failure if you don’t plan carefully. Here are 10 tips to make sure failure isn’t an option.

Disclaimer: This is what I’ve heard. I’ve never been Dugg.

Infrastructure

1. Have responsive servers

A responsive web server is crucial to serving visitors. Lethargic websites repel visitors, and ultimately you lose the Digg. If a request hasn’t been cached, it needs to be generated quickly, and the only way to do that is with a powerful server. My web host, hostrocket.com, guarantees that my web server has 4.4 ghz of processor and at least 2 gigabytes of RAM. That should do it. If you can, Gzip content.

2. Have bandwidth

A responsive web server is nothing if your “tubes” are plugged or are small. If your host is capping your bandwidth, you’re screwed. If you have lots of media, you’re definitely screwed. My host claims redundant OC-3/OC-12 lines.

3. Cache, cache, cache!

WordPress users especially! Database driven websites will grind to a halt when they make Digg/Popular. If you cache your site, your database servers won’t take a significant hit. Most content management systems include or have caching systems available. Drupal has caching built in. Wordpress users should get the wp-cache plugin and LEAVE IT ON.

4. Mirroring

If you have a video, and you’re pretentious enough to host it yourself, do the world a favor and upload it to a video sharing site, like YouTube or break.com, and then link to it from your page. They have bandwidth to supply streaming video to thousands… you don’t.

It also doesn’t hurt to visit your site on caching systems like Coral before you make Digg/Popular. Simply add .nyud.net after your domain. My website, for example, would be http://www.bradkovach.com.nyud.net on the Coral network.

Design

5. Reveal your feeds

If you have an RSS enabled site, show it off! Use the ubiquitous feed icon… Make sure your HTML declares that you have an RSS feed to light up feed finders in all modern browsers.

Put this between the <head> </head> on all pages.
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="[website
title here]" href="[link to RSS feed here]" />


6. Make your site easy to navigate

All the basics should be on your site. Make sure clicking the logo takes you to your home page. If there are dropdowns, make sure the user knows before he or she mouses-over. Add chronological context so that by “going left” users know that they are visiting older context and “going right” is newer content (or vice-versa).

Search is a must. If your CMS doesn’t do this, use Google SiteSearch. It’s free.

Make sure your website works in all major browsers. At least cover the big four: IE6, IE7, Firefox, and Safari.

7. Make Digg buttons available

If your users are coming from Digg, make it easy for them to support your content. Use Digg Tools to make sure your content has a Digg button that works.

Writing

8. Be cheeky

Digg users appreciate sarcasm. If you have opinions, let it show. Make sure diggers know that you are addressing THEM. Diggers also have tendencies that they go crazy over. Ron Paul and Apple gossip are categories that make people salivate/soak undies. The video game phenom Portal is another excellent topic.

9. Use lists

Lists obey the f-shaped pattern and help your visitors get through your content quickly. Diggers are busy people. Make sure you help them speed through the internet. Don’t consume their time. Unless you have games.

10. Think it out

A well constructed article will be organized. A little pre-writing goes a long way. I have this list scratched out in a Moleskine cahier that never leaves my desk. It isn’t much, but it helped me organized the flow of my article. Diggers are know-it-alls. They appreciate good grammar and a spell-checked document. Proofread and find mistakes.

In Parts One and Two of my series on The Demise of Facebook, I looked at Facebook’s background in general, Facebook’s infrastructure choices up to this point, and how its users have paid the price.

Security and Privacy

Facebook touts its security and privacy as a big feature. Part of Facebook’s appeal comes from the fact that you can “use privacy settings to control who sees your info.” (Quoted from Facebook’s homepage).

Facebook, although diligent in keeping information from the public eye, has lax policies regarding usage of private data within the company. A recent scoop by tech-gossip aggregator Valleywag exposed that “Facebook employees can (and do) check out anyone’s profile.”

Facebook employees can also cross-reference profile views, by perusing a list of profiles a user has viewed. Surprisingly, the privacy policy, which every user agrees to, doesn’t forbid this practice. Hypocritically, if you send a user a copy of a profile, it’s a privacy policy violation, which have previously been punished with cease and desist letters! When Facebook says you can “use privacy settings to control who sees your info,” they mean that you can use privacy settings to control who (of people that don’t work at Facebook) can see your info.

Facebook openly admits to objectionable data aggregation practices. Facebook’s privacy policy states that “we may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile” (Facebook’s Privacy Policy). Translation: “we might stalk you using newspapers, blogs, instant messenging services, and other users of Facebook to help people stalk you faster.” They harvest data? This stalking process needs a cool name. Like Beacon.

Facebook Beacon

To clear up misconceptions, I need to explain some terminology. Opt-in and Opt-out are words used to describe security practices. When a service is said to be opt-in, it means the user chose to partake in the service. Users can OPTion IN. When a security practice is opt-out, it means the user is automatically enrolled/subjected/interacting with a service, sometimes without knowledge that they were. Users can OPTion OUT from their enrollment.

Facebook Beacon, akin to Platform in that it allows 3rd party integration with Facebook, was originally opt-in without a chance to opt-out. When a user would make an action on non-Facebook websites, such as a purchase, information would be sent back to Facebook, without the user’s consent.

Facebook Beacon has raised significant problems. During the 2007 holiday season, Overstock.com customers noticed that their purchases were being aggregated to Facebook… which is bad if you’re buying for a Facebook friend, or spouse…

Sean Lane’s purchase was supposed to be a surprise for his wife. Then it appeared as a news headline – “Sean Lane bought 14k White Gold 1/5 ct Diamond Eternity Flower Ring from overstock.com” – last week on the social networking Web site Facebook.

Without Lane’s knowledge, the headline was visible to everyone in his online network, including 500 classmates from Columbia University and 220 other friends, co-workers and acquaintances.

And his wife.

Facebook backs down in privacy case

It’s not all bad, though. After exposing the online habits of millions of users without permission, Facebook apologized to users, and will now allow them to opt-out. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for Beacon’s intrusiveness in a press release on Facebook.com. Curiously, after the apology, Beacon has remained opt-in by default. Millions of naive users are having information aggregated about them. I suggest you turn it off.

Turning off Beacon

1. Go to the privacy page
2. Select “edit settings“
3. Check “Don’t allow any websites to send stories to my profile” and click “Save.”

Update: Respect

I had this in my notes, I just forgot to add it.

Facebook may be the most fun you’ve had online. I’ve had a blast using it. Facebook is hoarding your data. People upload photos, events, their lives, etc. to Facebook. Good luck getting it back. Facebook makes it difficult, if not impossible, to cancel your account. You can “Deactivate” your account, but it’s there… waiting… for you to come back and rejoin Facebook. You can deactivate, but Facebook has all of your photos, comments, demographic information, and your online life archived… for whatever reason.

According to Facebook’s Privacy Policy, “Individuals who wish to deactivate their Facebook account may do so on the My Account page. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of Facebook.”

Even continued requests to Facebook support yield endless hoops to jump through. In the hilarious article 2504 Steps to closing your Facebook account, Stephen Mansour proves that it is nearly impossible to close a Facebook account. His email banter with a customer “service” representative proved it:

If you do want your information completely wiped from our servers, we can do this for you.

So he deleted everything. However…

[Facebook] apologize[s], but you have not completely deleted all of your information. You still have incoming and outgoing messages, wall posts, mini-feed stories, friends, and contact information remaining on your profile. Once you have completely removed all information from your account, I will permanently delete it for you.

Facebook doesn’t respect your data. They hoard it. They profit from it. Without it, they wouldn’t be worth a recent $10 billion investment from Microsoft.

Citations

• Facebook employees know what profiles you look at
• Facebook | Privacy Policy
• Facebook backs down in privacy case
• Announcement: Facebook Users Can Now Opt-Out of Beacon Feature
• 2504 steps to closing your Facebook account

In Part 1 of The Demise of Facebook, I looked at several facets of Facebook that have helped it become popular. People have always been pleased with Facebook’s simple interface layout and easy navigation, but there are some flaws in Facebook that will haunt its future.

Applications are ruining Facebook. Photo: I Started Something

Platform

In the beginning, when Facebook was limited, it provided simple features: messaging, friend lists, event management, etc. As Facebook grew, so did it’s vision. Facebook has grown from simple networking/messaging to an online social operating system. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even voiced in his F8 (ironically spells fate) Keynote that the new vision of Facebook is to become an operating system.

Facebook Platform, a mesh of extensive APIs and programming malarkey, allows developers to build on to Facebook. Developers can create applications that hook their applications into Facebook, and vice-versa.

These applications are getting a mixed reception. Some people hate them. Many like them. But all are plagued by the spam-like social nature of the applications. Some applications, such as the Picasa application, provide useful conduit to another service on the Internet. The Picasa application, for example, allows you to upload photos, using the Picasa desktop program, straight to Facebook. Other applications have missed the mark entirely.

Applications are getting out of hand. People loved the mature Facebook. It was messaging/friend-making/event-planning bliss. Facebook is locked in a gradual, deadly decline.

When I log on to Facebook, dozens of “application invites” plug up my notification area. People want to know if I want to play “Pirates vs. Ninjas”… Hell no. “Grow a plant on my profile?”… Like weed? Punch someone?… Yeah, in real life.

Application developers are loving the gigantic social graph they tap into with their applications. For example, a Stanford course on Facebook Applications was collectively able to obtain 10 million users in 10 weeks. People are raking it in, too. A do-what-you-want policy lets application developers maintain applications for no fees, and serve advertisements without penalty. This win-win model allows some application developers earn upwards of $4,000 a day.

Facebook, has been deemed the number 1 persuasive technology¹. This clout, coupled with the power of the social graph, greedy developers and a juicy API have rocketed Facebook into the online operating system world. Although capable, Facebook will never be taken seriously as an online operating system due to the fact that “Pirates vs. Ninjas” has nothing to do with productivity or networking. At all.

Citations

1. Learning to Create Engaging Apps for Facebook: What Works and What Does Not – http://www.baychi.org/calendar/20071211/#1
2. Facebook Developers | Videos – http://developers.facebook.com/videos.php

Everyone has seen the Facebook train-wreck a-coming. I’ve been doing a lot of research on Facebook and will now throw my hat into the ring: Facebook needs to shape up, or they’ll lose users with dumb mistakes, just like MySpace.

Facebook started as a social networking website with a clean interface that helped its users navigate efficiently³. Headed by college-dropout² Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook blossomed into the monstrosity that it is today. Facebook is the host of nearly 58 million profiles, with an expected beyond-60-million-member milestone set for the end of 2007¹.

Mark Zuckerberg
Photo: Facebook.com

Facebook’s beginning started in February 2004³ when Zuckerberg created it to host profiles for Harvard University, where he was then attending. Soon, Zuckerberg opened Facebook to allow any college student with a collegiate email address.

Facebook slowly opened membership to younger audiences. On September 2, 2005, high schools, also subject to exclusivity restrictions, began appearing on Facebook². No big deal. By February 27, 2007, high-school members were allowed to network with college members¹.

Facebook has slowly been opening to more demographics. Now, if you’re alive, older than 13, in school ⁴ and able to read, you can join Facebook. This greatly enriches the so-called “social graph” a term used by Zuckerberg and Facebook to illustrate the vast amount of connections people make with each other using Facebook³.

Facebook’s success shadowed that of networking behemoth MySpace. Watching MySpace’s failures, especially the “pedophile era” that everyone remembers, was beneficial for Facebook. They quickly learned that privacy, most of all, was the priority, in fact, Facebook’s homepage still touts privacy as a “top 6″ feature.

The Facebook Signup Spiel – Screen captured from Facebook.com

Facebook has had a blessed history. They had a successful beginning, a great run so far, but it’s coming to an end. Part 2 of my three-part series will focus on the social graph’s potential, and how the greed associated with a gigantic community drove Facebook to create Facebook Platform, a way for developers to connect their own application development into Facebook’s gigantic “social graph.”

And so the fun begins.

Citations

1. Facebook – From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
2. Mark Zuckerberg – From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
3. Facebook | Factsheet – From Facebook Press Page
4. Terms of Use – From Facebook

Although we know that Firefox has some issues, a large portion of the internet is starting to use Firefox. As a web developer, there are several methods that I have devised to show the Internet how I browse. Using a variety of CSS and HTML tricks, I can publicize Firefox. Since my website was designed with primarily Firefox in mind, my users would benefit from switching. I’m no dummy… I’ve made my website work in the Big Four: IE6, IE7, Firefox and Safari. Through this article you should be able to learn some techniques of making IE cooperate a little more.

Firefox is gaining, but it still isn’t catching IE.

Easy: reveal something in the page.

We could use some of the advanced facets of conditional comments but we are only interested in appealing to one group of IE users: all of them. This conditional comment should do the trick…

<!--[if IE]>HTML<![endif]-->

The “HTML” is where we’ll put the IE specific content.

To show your IE users a Firefox banner, you could use…

<!--[if IE]><div id="getfirefox" style="text-align:
center"><a href="http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=0&t=216"><img
border="0" alt="Firefox 2" title="Firefox 2" src="http://sfx-images.mozilla.org/affiliates/Buttons/ firefox2/468x60FF2_Orange.png" /></a></div><![endif]-->

Simple as that. Anything inside the conditional comment will be shown to your IE users!

Easy: Reveal something with server-side scripting

Using a variety of server-side languages, you can determine whether a user is using IE or not. I prefer PHP, since I’m a WordPress junkie.

<?php
if (eregi("MSIE",getenv("HTTP_USER_AGENT")) ||
eregi("Internet Explorer",getenv("HTTP_USER_AGENT"))) {
#insert IE specific code here.
}
?>

Method 3: CSS

You can easily assign classes to elements that will make a Firefox link look extra Firefoxy. This particular example will push over a link to make room for a little Firefox icon.

.firefox {
padding-left: 20px;
background: URL(firefox.png) no-repeat !important;
}

Now, in my web pages, I can assign this to anything I’d like, including links that would let you download Firefox. To make this link, I simply added the Firefox class to the link…

<a href="http://www.spreadfirefox.com" class="firefox">links that would let you download Firefox.</a>

Other uses for conditional comments

Aside from using conditional comments to evangelize Firefox, I’ve also used them to keep my valid CSS code hack-free. In some of my websites, such as ones I did for Lincoln County School District #2, it wasn’t appropriate to force an opinion on users. However, It is very appropriate to warn the users that they are using an old version of their browser.

In the case of IE7 being the latest and greatest breed if Internet Explorer, the following code will tell users that an upgrade is available for them. If you want the background as well, you’ll have to change the URL(ielogo.jpg) part to match a background image that you like.

<!--[if !IE 7]></p>
<div id="ieupgrade" style="background: URL(ielogo.jpg)
no-repeat; padding: 10px 15px 10px 200px; text-align: right;">
<h2>Uh-oh!</h2>
<p>Although we’ve taken every possible step to ensure our site
works well with your computer, your browser is out of date!</p>
<h3><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx"
target="_blank">update now »</a></h3>
</div>
<p><![endif]-->

Conclusions

Although good web developers shouldn’t be narrow-minded and develop for one browser, evangelism of a safer Internet is certainly worthwhile. Any action to help your users make a security-conscious decision is a good action. Do it.

Citations

• How to block MS Internet Explorer from your site… [http://www.devin.com/ieblock_howto.shtml]
• About Conditional Comments [http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537512.aspx]