In the tech-oriented area of the internet, Google Chrome caused more heavy waves than any comparable event before. Reports and discussions surfaced everywhere. According to one source, Google Chrome already had a market share of over 1% after only a few hours – probably caused by curiosity like mine.

Here are some topics – some with a link – I find interesting:

• First impressions
• Why Google releases a browser of its own
• What Chrome can do the others cannot
• Chrome’s effect not only on the browser market
• Security issues of the beta
• Chrome is calling home
• How to prevent Chrome from transmitting data to Google (in German)
• How fast is Chrome really
• Are all of Chrome’s components open source
• Where’re the Mac and Linux versions
• Is the beta of Google Chrome suited for Joe Average
• Lots of opinions on Chrome
• Google, a $100,000 misunderstanding (in German)

Installation and setup

Of course, I was curious too and have tried to download the software. I was able to download ChromeSetup.exe thru a proxy that required authentication, but the subsequent download of the software proper failed due to the fact, that ChromeSetup wasn’t able to handle a proxy that required authentication. It worked with a proxy that didn’t require authentication though. Strange enough, after installation Chrome is able to handle a proxy with authentication.

What I really don’t like is that Chrome is transmitting a unique Id back to Google, so that’s easy to track where the user has been on the internet. To prevent this, change two entries in the file Local State of the Google Chrome installation. Although I can understand Google’s motivation for this, a complete user profile is not something I want Google to have, as I don’t have any control over it.

Bug fixes and more from Google

Google has already addressed some concerns about the EULA and a security problem within a very short period of time, so I hope they will be equally fast fixing new problems as they occur. What they really should address before the first official release is the ability of the user to control in an easy way, what data he wants Google to receive about his surfing habits. If in doubt, don’t send anything. They should not only explain what data is stored on their servers, but give the users a choice.

On the same page, I don’t like how they handle the installation of GoogleUpdate.exe as a service, even though it’s mentioned in section 12 of the Google Terms of Service. It’s not mentioned during the installation of Chrome, that it doesn’t go away after I’ve uninstalled Chrome. It simply stays there and is started every time I log into my computer. Manually editing the Windows registry seems to be required if you want to get rid of the GoogleUpdate service. GoogleUpdate is installed and used by a lot of other Google software too.

It’s fast

After a couple of days using Chrome I’ve to say that I’m impressed by its speed. This doesn’t come from the benchmarks saying that it’s mostly faster than the competition, but from my experiences working with it. It’s not only starting up faster than Firefox 3.0.1, but feels a lot snappier too. Browsing the internet with Chrome is definitely fun.

It’s beta software and not finished yet

The current version of Chrome is an early beta version, so don’t expect that it will not have problems. It’s something you should use only if you’re aware of the risks involved in using beta software. It might have security problems and bugs that can lead to lost data. It shouldn’t be used in production environments.

It’s also missing a lot of features I’m used to expect from other browser like Mozilla Firefox. All the nice little ad-ons are still missing. Especially Adblock Plus is missed here, because only without it I’ve realized how ugly the internet really is. And have you tried to read a RSS feed? It doesn’t work yet.

Conclusion

Google Chrome looks like one piece of software I might love to use one day. Most features present today are impressive already. It will then be added to the list of software from Google I’m using on a regular basis today. I’m using Google software for:

• developing AJAX applications in Java with Google Web Toolkit
• wiring dependencies with the dependency injection framework Google Guice
• extending the Java Collections Framework with Google Collections

These software products I use that come from Google are great, and I like to use them. Chrome is a little bit different as it comes with a price, that not everybody is willing to pay: you give Google the ability to create a user profile of you and you can’t control what they are doing with it. If Chrome has the ability to turn this off, then it might be for me.

During the recent holidays I spent the entire time away from work and with my family. As most of the time when I’m away from work I made a list of things to look at. Wicket was not on that list. I seldom make it at least half way thru that list anyway. It was the same this time. But then I saw this article on TheServerSide about the release of Wicket 1.3. The big amount of comments caught my interest. Suddenly, Wicket was on that list.

Today, I downloaded and installed Wicket, and then looked for documentation and tutorials. Besides some interesting online resources, I found the combination of two books on Wicket the most helpful:

• The first ten available chapters of Wicket in Action (MEAP – Manning Early Access Program) by Martijn Dashorst and Eelco Hillenius, published by Manning Publications Co.
• Enjoying Web Development with Wicket by Ka Iok Kent Tong, published as PDF only, with freely available first three chapters

The first book seems a little more verbose than the second book and covers more background, while the second book (besides being more complete right now) has much more source code examples. They complement each other perfectly in my opinion. So I got them both.

After reading thru the first three freely available chapters of “Enjoying Web Development with Wicket”, I got interested in chapter 6 (Supporting Other Languages). I was really impressed to see how I18N is a first class citizen in Wicket.

I then turned to “Wicket in Action”. Right now it is not completed and contains many errors, but none of this is really a problem. I made it thru the chapters 1-4 and implemented the Cheesr sample application (from chapter 4) along the way.

I really like what I’ve seen so far from Wicket:

• It’s component based and encapsulates the request/response cycle
• Components seem easy to write
• Good internationalisation concept
• Separation from logic and presentation

Right, I’ve barely scratched the surface yet, but Wicket as a web framework looks promising.

Three days after GWT 1.4.60 came out, the issue was reported, approximately at the same time I was experiencing it. I was hoping for a quick fix, but it didn’t come.

Several month later, Google’s Scott Blum wrote in the GWT forum about an updated GWT 1.4 release. Although I read the forum quite regularly, I nearly missed his posting. He talks about the new release fixing the problem, and he also provides a download link for GWT 1.4.61. I’ve downloaded it and upgraded all my application without a problem so far.

Since it fixes a very serious problem, you should upgrade also. Problem is, you will not see the new version on the GWT download page. At least not yet, but I bet you will see it there shortly. In the meantime, just use this link.

Update: It took a little bit longer than I expected, but the GWT Team has just officially released GWT 1.4.61, which takes care of some minor bugs in the previous release of GWT 1.4.60. The two main issues that were addressed are the “operation aborted” startup error on IE and a potential XSS vulnerability in hosted mode.

There are no differences between the 1.4.61 version released on December 12th, 2007 and the 1.4.61 version released on November 3rd, 2007.

If the application doesn’t load, please click here!

Before I was able to include a GWT application within a post in this WordPress powered blog, I had to create a WordPress plugin that generates the necessary meta tags. GWT applications only work, when those meta tags are present.

The actual calculation of the expression is done on the server with the help of my Java based framework. The expression is sent to the server asynchronously as a JSON data packet. The server logic evaluates the expression and sends back either the result, or an error message. If you want to see an error message, try a division by 0. The response is sent also in the JSON format back to the browser, where the GWT application takes it and displays it without refreshing the whole page.

The server side logic is built with the help of ANTLR and ANTLR Studio for Eclipse. Instead of writing a lexer and parser for evaluation of the expressions myself, I’ve used a grammar to let these tools do it for me. The following screenshot shows ANTLR Studio for Eclipse in action:

If you want to know what ANTLR is, here is a quote from Terence Parr, the primary author of ANTLR. He has been working on translation tools since the late 80s:

ANTLR, ANother Tool for Language Recognition, (formerly PCCTS) is a parser and translator generator tool, akin to the venerable lex/yacc duo, that lets you construct recognizers, compilers, and source-to-source translators from grammatical descriptions containing C++ or Java actions. You can build translators for database formats, graphical data files (e.g., PostScript, AutoCAD), text processing files (e.g., HTML, SGML), etc. ANTLR is designed to handle all of your translation tasks. ANTLR is recommended by the co-inventor of LL(k) parsers and by the inventor of SLR(k) and LALR(k) parser.

Another tool makes generation of GWT clients easier. It’s the GWT Designer from Instantiations. I’m having a few problems with it, but it still helps a lot. See the following screenshot for an impression:

If you’re interested in this example built with GWT, ANTLR, JSON, etc., and you want to look at the source code, just download it from here.

Do you remember the little problem from the Geometry for kids post earlier today? With the calculator, you can verify if the solution is correct: d = sqrt(3)*5.3.

Update 1: As of GWT 1.4, a new application-loading mechanism has been introduced, that doesn’t require a meta tag in the page header. It’s still supported for legacy applications. But now, the applications HTML code can directly reference the JavaScript file. I’ve changed the example above accordingly.

Update 2: The calculator has been updated to GWT 2.0. The project available for download has been updated as well.

Communication between the synformation server and the client web application takes place under the same origin policy. Whenever the client needs data from another service outside the synformation domain, the synformation server can act as a proxy for such requests, thus avoiding to circumvent the policy. If you don’t have a server to act as a proxy for you, then the technique described in this article might be of interest to you. From a security perspective, neither of the two approaches is inherently more safe.