Chance remarks can be powerful.

Anyways, if you have read my slapstory, you probably know about Dr. Ass, my physics lecturer who has a habit of saying and doing weird things. However, one chance remark of his blasted me off in the thinking tunnel.

It all happened like this. When he had joined us, it was election time in college. Campaigning by two rival groups, Change and Revolution, was in full swing, and some guys from the latter had decorated the blackboard of our class with their slogans — “Only Solution.. Revolution”, “Be a Rebel”, “Vote for Revolution!”, and things like that. That prompted Dr. Ass to speak up, much to the embarrasement of us. Embarrasment? Yeah.. Because he has a habit of saying and doing weird things, remember?

He said, “Azadi bhi khatarnaak ho sakti hai.” (Independence can be dangerous, too.)

We fought for more than a century, trying to free ourselves from the Britishers’ grasp. We suffered so much, trying to make our voices heard. We sacrificed so many lives, trying to become able to take our own decisions, trying to become independent. Sixty years on, we are quipping about our independence being dangerous? What the hell?

Sadly, this snide remark has proven true in this modern world.

If you are a citizen of this World, you probably know about terrorism; or rather, the changing face of terrorism. Ever since Laden and 9/11 have been in common knowledge, terror has transformed itself. Which was then a work of a handful of ill-equipped, badly managed jehadis is now the doings of a state-of-the-art worldwide network of professional terrorists. Terror strikes all over the World have been on the rise in recent years, with India not being immune to that.

While this was expected, our country’s lame response to them leaves a lot to be desired.

How come there have been so many terror strikes in such a short span of time? How come there is such a lax security around, even in the wake of attacks? How come the terrorists are able to strike in the National Capital twice in fifteen days? How come, even after nabbing down suspects after suspects, the law enforcement agencies are not able to get to the truth about the people and/or organizations behind these attacks?

We are Indians. We are independent. We are able to take our own decisions. If we are asking such questions, our independence is in trouble.

Its been roughly eighteen hours since the serial blasts in New Delhi took place. So I guess you know about them. A total of five bomb blasts took place, in crowded areas like Gaffar Market, Greater Kailash, Connought Place and Barakhamba Road. Also, live bombs were diffused near Regal cinema hall in Connought Place and near India Gate. 

Google Chrome, a new internet browser from the web search giant Google, was released earlier this week. This adds a yet another service/software from their ever-increasing stable. What started as a small University Project back in 1996, has now grown into a multi-billion dollar company, which encompasses online services including Search, E-Mail, Online Office Suite, Web Albums, Video Sharing, Blogging Platform and what not else. Perhaps the move to introduce a browser to the market must have been anticipated by many. By introducing services after services, Google has become the ubiquitous identity povider for us, for having a single Google Account grants access to a multitude of services encompasing the whole range of our online activities. A browser was on the minds of Google folks for sure.

How is it?

The initial reactions for Chrome have largely been positive. It has some intuitive features not found in mainstream browsers, and is designed to be rock stable. In fact, Chrome’s every tab runs in its separate process, so that the user can safely turn off the one which crashed, while keeping the rest of them intact. A typically useful feature there, considering how notorious some media-heavy websites can be.

Chrome, by its design is minimalistic. There is no Title Bar, no Menu Bar, and no additional toolbars(!), which results in a very clean interface and a lot of screen real estate being given to the web page. Clearly, IE needs to learn something from it! There is no concept of a ‘Home Page’ — upon opening the browser you are presented with thumbnails of nine most visited websites, along with the Bookmarks Bar, and an option to search your history (view screenshot).

The Address Bar, which is known as Omnibox in Chrome, is also very intuitive in its design. You can either type the address of the website you want to visit, or you can enter some keywords, which will initiate a Google Search. Also, as you type, it will show you the relevant links from your history, and also from the World Wide Web (view screenshot).

A nice animation plays when you initiate a download from a website, the progress of which is displayed at the bottom of the tab. Since every tab has its own process, you can view, via Chrome’s own Task Manager, which one is consuming how much amount of memory, or bandwidth. This way, you can safely turn off the offenders (read: tabs which are bandwidth or memory hogs).

Some (early) limitations

Being an early release (it is version 0.2), and some websites, like the popular Social Network Facebook, do not run as expected in Chrome. Also, it does not handle RSS Feed links very well, showing you the XML code instead. Clearly, there is a lot of work to be done. Somebody even discovered a Security Flaw in the browser, hours after it was launched!

However, these issues are likely to be sorted out soon, for Chrome is an Open Source browser, much like FireFox. Also, a multitude of plugins are going to be developed by developers all around the world, which will make such nuisances a thing of the past.

Google (and) Chrome

Although I’m not surprised the least, but Chrome loads Google services, like GMail and Google Reader blazingly fast. In fact, ever since I have got my hands on it, I have not used FireFox to check my email and read my feeds. And it comes bundled with Google Gears too!

On a side note

With the launch of Google’s Browser, there have been skeptisms from a variety of people — how much information is Google allowed to keep? With its own browser, Google might keep track of our browsing histories, and might sell this information to advertisers. Anil Dash of SixApart, says in his blog post -

connecting PageRank to economic systems such as AdWords and AdSense corrupted the meaning and value of links by turning them into an economic exchange.

Now that Google can know the browsing activities of millions of users, it might try to use it for its own benefit. What is your take on this?

Within a day of its launch, Chrome has already captured 1% of market share! I don’t know if this trend will continue, but if it does, it might spell doom for IE, FF and Safari. I’m amazed by its slew of new features, still I love my FireFox better