WebM Plugin for Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 9 will be released later today and one of the many new features is the native support for videos. Unfortunately for Google, Microsoft decided to only support H.264 videos by default, so you can't watch WebM videos without installing additional software.

To solve this problem, Google developed a WebM plugin for IE9. "They said elephants couldn't ride flying dolphins. They said that one of the world's most popular browsers couldn't play WebM video in HTML5. They were wrong," mentions Google half-jokingly.

The plugin only works on Windows 7 and Windows Vista, the two operating systems supported by IE9. Google suggests to search for WebM videos on YouTube, but I'm not sure if the plugin was really necessary since YouTube's HTML5 player also works with H.264 videos.


Last month, Microsoft released a plugin for watching H.264 videos in Google Chrome that will be useful when Google drops support for the popular codec.

Google Toolbar 8, Powered by Google Chrome

After Google released Chrome, Google Toolbar's development slowed down. That's because Google Toolbar is no longer the primary vehicle for adding browser features and Google mostly focused on improving Chrome.

Google Toolbar 8 is a completely new version of Google's add-on that was available as part of Google Labs. "Google Toolbar 8 is actually built and runs on top of the Google Chrome Frame platform. This means that Toolbar 8 will run more like a web app in that it can be customized and updated much more frequently and easily. It also means that Google Chrome Frame is installed at the time of Toolbar 8 installation," explains Google.


The new version of Google's toolbar only works in Internet Explorer right now and it doesn't include all the features that are currently available in the latest public version. Google included some new features: buttons for the most visited sites, Google Dictionary integration and Google Instant. "Google Toolbar displays up to seven of your most visited sites as buttons. Click on a button to go directly to its site. When you download the new Google Toolbar your toolbar will display buttons for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Youtube, Google News, Google Reader and Google Tasks by default."

Upcoming Blogger Features

Google rarely preannounces new features, so I was really surprised to see a video that highlights some upcoming Blogger features. Google's video does a great job at enumerating the latest Blogger improvements, while asking people: "Have you looked at Blogger lately?".

Google plans to unveil a completely new Blogger interface, mobile templates for blogs (which are already available at Blogger in Draft) and a feature that lets you find related posts and videos.






Here's the video:

Chrome 12 Will Drop Support for Google Gears

While most Chrome users have been upgraded to Chrome 10, Google is fixing the bugs from Chrome 11 and working on Chrome 12. A recent Chromium build made a significant change: Gears is no longer included in Google Chrome.


Gears is a browser plugin released by Google back in 2007, The initial goal was to add support for offline web apps, but the plugin added many other HTML5 features at a time when HTML5 wasn't a priority for most browsers. Google discontinued Gears last year to focus on "bringing all of the Gears capabilities into web standards like HTML5" and to implement them in Google Chrome. Features like geolocation, notifications, web workers, application caches are already available in Google Chrome, so it's probably the right time to stop bundling the Gears plugin.

"With all this now available in HTML5, it's finally time to say goodbye to Gears. There will be no new Gears releases, and newer browsers such as Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 will not be supported. We will also be removing Gears from Chrome in Chrome 12," informs Google.

What's surprising is that important services like Gmail and Google Calendar still use Gears to work offline. Other services like Google Docs and Google Reader dropped offline support last year. Google promised that they will use HTML5 features implemented in browsers like Chrome or Firefox, but that hasn't materialized yet.

Block Sites from Google's Results

You no longer have to use Google's Chrome extension to hide the results from certain domains. The feature is now available at google.com and the best thing is that the list of blocked sites is saved to your Google Account.

To try this feature, make sure that you are using google.com in English. Click on a search result, then go back to the list of results. You'll notice that there's a new link next to the result you've just clicked: "block all [domain.tld] results".


If you block an entire domain, you'll no longer see results from that site. You'll only notice a small box at the bottom of the search results page which informs you that you've blocked certain results.

There's also a page that lets you manage your blacklist and manually block sites. "Sites will be blocked only for you, but Google may use everyone's blocking information to improve the ranking of search results overall. You may block up to 500 sites."


As Barry Schwarz points out, blocking sites is not a novelty: in 2005, Google tested a similar option. "If you're in this experiment, you'll have newfound powers. Click the 'Remove result' link and with one click you can drop that url from your search results. By default, it will only block that url for that particular search. If you're really annoyed, you can click 'More options' and you'll get two more choices: block this url from all future searches and the ability to block the entire host from all future searches," explained Matt Cutts at that time. The experiment wasn't successful, but Google partially resurrected this feature in SearchWiki: you could only hide a search result for a specific query.

I think that blocking an entire site from Google's results is a feature that's way too powerful for a regular user. Some might use it accidentally and find that Google's results are suddenly less relevant. Google could add a link for explicit feedback ("Not useful?") and use that information to personalize search results.

Google's Navigation Bar Links to Your Google Profile

Google's new navigation bar started to link to the profile pages. Click on your name at the top of a Google page and you'll notice that you can quickly access your profile. If you don't have a profile, Google includes a link to a page that lets you create an account.


Another change is that Google Profiles include a new tab for Picasa Web Albums, but it's not enabled by default and it's not available if you don't link your Google Profile with Picasa Web. "Your profile and scrapbook photos already make it easier for people to get to know you, but we want to do more to help you showcase your favorite pics. By choosing to show the PicasaWeb tab, you will enable visitors to see your public albums. Private albums will remain visible to only the people you've shared them with directly."


{ Thanks, Stefan. }

Google's Word Count Experiment

Google tests a new feature that shows the approximate number of words next to certain search results. The word count is usually displayed for articles, but only for a small number of results. You'll probably think twice before clicking on a search result that has 50,000 words, unless you're looking for an in-depth report.



Maybe Google will also add an advanced search feature that lets you restrict the search results to short articles or long documents. A summarization feature would also be helpful.