Valve announced today that Steam will require Windows 10 or later on January 1, 2024. The reason? Google Chrome. PC Gamer reports: "The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows," Valve's typically curt announcement reads. "In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above." January 1, 2024 is the day of doom for Steam on the old Windows versions. "After that date, the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows."

Gizmodo reports that Amazon "is thinking about releasing a web browser, a boring-sounding project that could have massive implications." The company has sent a survey to users asking detailed questions, including which features would "convince you to download and try" a "new desktop/laptop browser from Amazon...."

The survey asked a variety of questions. Most telling was the last question: "Imagine that there is a new desktop/laptop browser from Amazon available to do. Select which of the following you would most like to know more about." The survey went on to list topics such as privacy, syncing passwords across devices, and shopping features.... Users were asked to rate the importance of features including text to speech, extensions, the availability to sync data across desktop and mobile devices, and — notably — blocking third party cookies.

Amazon seems to be seriously considering a web browser of its own, and it comes at a time when it would have an unusual impact on the advertising business. The ad industry is bracing for cataclysmic change as Google moves closer to killing third-party cookies in Chrome, the world's most popular web browser, which would kneecap one of the primary ways businesses track consumers for ads.... Part of what makes Amazon so attractive to marketers is the fact that the company sits on a treasure trove of data about what consumers are buying and what their shopping habits are like. If Amazon could match that information with the data collection that comes from a web browser, it could tip the scales of internet advertising in favor of the retail giant.
One thing Amazon asked users is whethered they'd be convinced to download and try a browser if it offered "AI-enabled tab, history, and bookmarks management to automatically sort these into categories for quick search and retrieval."

Mike Butcher writes via TechCrunch: SidekickWas it the pandemic? Did everyone follow too many ADHD TikTokers? Have smartphones fried our brains? Whatever the case, there is a boom in ADHD tech solutions, from online drug deliveries to web sites and apps. [...] Now there is a Sidekick, who's pitch is that it's a "productivity browser." Today it's launching a host of features geared to ADHD sufferers and the attention distracted more generally. The company claims users with ADHD noticed a "significant improvement" after using the browser. The Chromium-based browser was founded by Dmitry Pushkarev (a Stanford PhD in Molecular Biology, ex-Amazon exec and ADHDer).

So how does it work? To nullify distractions, the browser incorporates AdBlock 2.0; a Focus Mode Timer disables all sounds, badges and notifications for a selected time or indefinitely; a Task Manager organizes your day; and there's a built-in Pomodoro timer; it also claims to run 3x faster than Chrome, which, apparently, is important for ADHD sufferers. Suffice it to say, it has a number of other distraction-killing features; however, I'm not going to list them all here.

CEO and founder Dmitry Pushkarev said, in a statement, "Modern browsers are not designed for work, but for consuming web pages. This gap really hurts hundreds of millions of users. We are convinced that lowering web distraction reduces anxiety and increases the quality of people's work and the quality of their lives." He says the startup plans to make money via corporate subscribers, who will pay to get their ADHD-afflicted workers into a more productive mode.

An Nvidia GPU driver update has caused some users to see inflated CPU usage after closing 3D games, which persists until a reboot. Nvidia confirmed the problem with driver update 531.18, and will post a hotfix on March 7. PCWorld reports: The company confirmed the problem with the latest driver update, 531.18, which was published on February 28th. An updated list of open issues (including some that didn't make it into the full release notes) was posted to Nvidia's support forum, and spotted by VideoCardz.com. Issue number 4007208 reads, "Higher CPU usage from NVIDIA Container may be observed after exiting a game." Some users are showing CPU usage of up to 10-15 percent in these conditions -- not enough to seriously hamper most gaming desktops, but more than enough to be an annoyance, especially if you use your PC for other intensive tasks. Like opening three Chrome tabs at once.

At the moment there's no easy fix, so the immediate solution if you're affected is to roll back your driver to version 528.49 from February 8th, available for manual download here.

Google has begun the process of bringing Chrome's full Blink browser engine to iOS against current App Store rules, and now we have our first look at the test browser in action. 9to5Google reports: In the weeks since the project was announced, Google (and Igalia, a major open source consultancy and frequent Chromium contributor) have been hard at work getting a simplified "content_shell" browser up and running in iOS and fixing issues along the way. As part of that bug fixing process, some developers have even shared screenshots of the minimal Blink-based browser running on an iPhone 12. In the images, we can see a few examples of Google Search working as expected, with no glaringly obvious issues in the site's appearance. Above the page contents, you can see a simple blue bar containing the address bar and typical browser controls like back, forward, and refresh.

With a significant bit of effort, we were able to build the prototype browser for ourselves and show other sites including 9to5Google running in Blink for iOS, through the Xcode Simulator. As an extra touch of detail, we now know what the three-dots button next to the address bar is for. It opens a menu with a "Begin tracing" button, to aid performance testing. From these work-in-progress screenshots, it seems clear that the Blink for iOS project is already making significant progress, but it's clearly a prototype not meant to be used like a full web browser. The next biggest step that Google has laid out is to ensure this version of Blink/Chromium for iOS passes all of the many tests that ensure all aspects of a browser are working correctly.

Nvidia is releasing new GPU drivers today that will upscale old blurry web videos on RTX 30- and 40-series cards. The Verge reports: RTX Video Super Resolution is a new AI upscaling technology from Nvidia that works inside Chrome or Edge to improve any video in a browser by sharpening the edges of objects and reducing video artifacts. Nvidia will support videos between 360p and 1440p up to 144Hz in frame rate and upscale all the way up to 4K resolution.

This impressive 4K upscaling has previously only been available on Nvidia's Shield TV, but recent advances to the Chromium engine have allowed Nvidia to bring this to its latest RTX 30- and 40-series cards. As this works on any web video, you could use it to upscale content from Twitch or even streaming apps like Netflix where you typically have to pay extra for 4K streams.

After widely rolling out an Energy Saver mode, Google has made four optimizations to Chrome for Mac that allows the browser to match the battery life you get when using Safari. 9to5Google reports: Google conducted testing on a MacBook Pro (13", M2, 2022 with 8 GB RAM running macOS Ventura 13.2.1) with Chrome 110.0.5481.100 in February of 2023. It showed that you can "browse for 17 hours or watch YouTube for 18 hours." For comparison, Apple touts up to 17 hours of wireless web browsing, and up to 20 hours Apple TV app movie playback. Meanwhile, Google uses this open-source benchmarking suite to run tests, and says that users will also "see performance gains on older models." Four changes from waking the CPU less often to tuning memory compression are specifically credited:

- Eliminating unnecessary redraws: "We navigated on real-world sites with a bot and identified Document Object Model (DOM) change patterns that don't affect pixels on the screen. We modified Chrome to detect those early and bypass the unnecessary style, layout, paint, raster and gpu steps. We implemented similar optimizations for changes to the Chrome UI."
- Fine tuning iframes: "...we fine-tuned the garbage collection and memory compression heuristics for recently created iframes. This results in less energy consumed to reduce short-term memory usage (without impact on long-term memory usage)."
- Tweaking timers: "...Javascript timers still drive a large proportion of a Web page's power consumption. As a result, we tweaked the way they fire in Chrome to let the CPU wake up less often. Similarly, we identified opportunities to cancel internal timers when they're no longer needed, reducing the number of times that the CPU is woken up."
- Streamlining data structures: "We identified data structures in which there were frequent accesses with the same key and optimized their access pattern."

Google Chrome's giving its page zoom feature a boost, which should make it more helpful for people who have difficulty reading the smaller screen on a phone. From a report: With the improved feature, you can increase the size of text, images, videos, and interactive controls on mobile web pages by up to 300 percent while preserving their original formatting. While the feature hasn't yet become available for all Chrome users, you can access it now if you download the Chrome beta on your phone or tablet. To enable the feature, tap the three dots icon in the top right corner of the browser, hit Settings > Accessibility, and then adjust the zoom level to your liking. Google will save this preference for all the sites you browse so you won't have to keep tweaking it, and will even bypass the ones that try to block zoom features. Previously, Google only allowed users to adjust text scaling options up to 200 percent.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Being the default out-of-the-box browser on Windows 10 and 11 makes Microsoft Edge a go-to utility for downloading Chrome or another browser. That upsets Microsoft so much that it constantly comes with more aggressive and user-hostile methods to make customers stay on Edge. An attempt to install Chrome using Edge Canary now results in the browser displaying two ads: the first (tiny one) will pop on the screen when the Chrome website loads, and the second, a humongous full-size banner, will appear once the download starts. Yikes!

Microsoft also plays with words to throw shade at Chrome. The banner states that Edge uses the same technology as Chrome with the "added trust of Microsoft." The "trust" that your computer will connect to ad providers the moment you turn it on for the first time. The "trust" that Edge will shove more "recommended content" down your throat and enforce Bing without you even making a click. The "trust" that you cannot remove Edge from your computer and many more.

Google has released optimization features designed to improve battery life and memory usage on machines running the latest version of its Chrome desktop web browser. From a report: Chrome's new Energy Saver and Memory Saver modes were first announced in December last year alongside the release of Chrome 108, and now as noted by Android Police, the two optimization utilities are starting to roll out globally onto Chrome 110 desktops for Mac, Windows, and Chromebooks.

Memory Saver mode essentially snoozes Chrome tabs that aren't currently in use to free up RAM for more intensive tasks and create a smoother browsing experience. Don't worry if you're a tab hoarder though, as these inactive tabs are still visible and can be reloaded at any time to pick up where you left off. Your most used websites can also be marked as exempt from Memory Saver to ensure they're always running at the maximum possible performance.

Valentine's Day saw Mozilla releasing version 110.0 of its Firefox browser. OMG Ubuntu highlights some of its new features: Firefox already supports importing bookmarks, history, and passwords from Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Chromium, and Safari but once you have the Firefox 110 update you can also import data from Opera, Opera GX, and Vivaldi too — which is handy.

Other changes in Firefox 110 include the ability to clear date, time, and datetime-local input fields using using ctrl + backspace and ctrl + delete on Linux (and Windows) — no, can't say I ever noticed I couldn't do that, either.

Additionally, Mozilla say GPU-accelerated Canvas2D is now enabled by default on Linux, and we can all expect to benefit from a miscellaneous clutch of WebGL performance improvements.

According to The Register, Google has been paying Apple a portion of search revenue generated by people using Google Chrome on iOS. From the report: This is one of the aspects of the relationship between the two tech goliaths that currently concerns the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Though everyone knows Google pays Apple, Samsung, and other manufacturers billions of dollars to make its web search engine the default on devices, it has not been reported until now that the CMA has been looking into Chrome on iOS and its role in a search revenue sharing deal Google has with Apple. The British competition watchdog is worried that Google's payments to Apple discourage the iPhone maker from competing with Google. Substantial payments for doing nothing incentivize more of the same, it's argued. This perhaps explains why Apple, though hugely profitable, has not launched a rival search engine or invested in the development of its Safari browser to the point that it could become a credible challenger to Chrome.

Having Google pay Apple "a significant share of revenue from Google Search traffic" passing through its own Chrome browser on iOS is difficult to explain. Apple does not provide any obvious value to people seeking to use Google Search within Google Chrome. One attempt to explain the arrangement can be found in an antitrust lawsuit filed on December 27, 2021, and subsequently amended [PDF] on March 29, 2022. The complaint, filed by the Alioto Law Firm in San Francisco, claims Apple has been paid for the profits it would have made if it had competed with Google, without the cost and challenge of doing so. "Because more than half of Google's search business was conducted through Apple devices, Apple was a major potential threat to Google, and that threat was designated by Google as 'Code Red,'" the complaint contends. "Google paid billions of dollars to Apple and agreed to share its profits with Apple to eliminate the threat and fear of Apple as a competitor."

These alleged revenue sharing arrangements -- which are known in detail only to a limited number of people and have yet to be fully disclosed -- have been noted by the UK CMA as well as the US Justice Department, which along with eleven US States, filed an antitrust complaint against Google on October 20, 2020. Reached by phone, attorney Joseph M. Alioto, who filed the private antitrust lawsuit, told The Register it would not surprise him to learn that Google has been paying Apple for search revenue derived from Chrome. He said Google's deal with Apple, which began at $1 billion per year, reached as high as $15 billion annually in 2021. "The division of the market is per se illegal under the antitrust laws," said Alioto. Apple and Google are currently trying to have the case dismissed citing lack of evidence of a horizontal agreement between the two companies, and other supposed deficiencies.

Google has been paying Apple a portion of search revenue generated by people using Google Chrome on iOS, The Register reported Friday, citing a source. This is one of the aspects of the relationship between the two tech goliaths that currently concerns the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the report added. From the report: Though everyone knows Google pays Apple, Samsung, and other manufacturers billions of dollars to make its web search engine the default on devices, it has not been reported until now that the CMA has been looking into Chrome on iOS and its role in a search revenue sharing deal Google has with Apple. We twice asked Apple and Google to confirm or deny what we've learned, and neither corporation would talk. We also approached the CMA, and a spokesperson for the monopoly regulator said: "The CMA cannot comment on or disclose any confidential information."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As spotted in Kevin Tofel's About Chromebooks blog, an updated version of the shortcut viewer in the Settings app -- first seen in October 2022 -- has the early makings of a shortcut changing and adding mechanism.

Clicking on a shortcut brings up a dialogue that allows you to, at the moment, add alternative shortcuts to common shortcuts for manipulating tabs, windows and desktops, system settings, accessibility, and other utilities. A small "lock" icon next to each suggests that you might also be able to unlock these shortcuts to remove or alter their defaults. A "Reset all shortcuts" button offers another hint. Sadly, none of the shortcuts you add seem to work for the moment, though the promise is there.

Mozilla is planning for the day when Apple will no longer require its competitors to use the WebKit browser engine in iOS. From a report: Mozilla conducted similar experiments that never went anywhere years ago but in October 2022 posted an issue in the GitHub repository housing the code for the iOS version of Firefox that includes a reference to GeckoView, a wrapper for Firefox's Gecko rendering engine. Under the current Apple App Store Guidelines, iOS browser apps must use WebKit. So a Firefox build incorporating Gecko rather than WebKit currently cannot be distributed through the iOS App Store.

As we reported last week, Mozilla is not alone in anticipating an iOS App Store regime that tolerates browser competition. Google has begun work on a Blink-based version of Chrome for iOS. The major browser makers -- Apple, Google, and Mozilla -- each have their own browser rendering engines. Apple's Safari is based on WebKit; Google's Chrome and its open source Chromium foundation is based on Blink (forked from WebKit a decade ago); and Mozilla's Firefox is based on Gecko. Microsoft developed its own Trident rendering engine in the outdated Internet Explorer and a Trident fork called EdgeHTML in legacy versions of Edge but has relied on Blink since rebasing its Edge browser on Chromium code.

Longtime Slashdot reader Dotnaught writes: "Google's Chromium developers have begun work on an experimental web browser for Apple's iOS using the search giant's Blink engine," reports The Register. "That's unexpected because the current version of Chrome for iOS uses Apple's WebKit rendering engine under the hood. Apple requires every iOS browser to use WebKit and its iOS App Store Review Guidelines state, 'Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript.'"

Google insists this is an experiment and isn't intended for release. But the stripped-down, Blink-based browser could be preparation for European competition rules that look like they will require Apple to stop requiring that other browser makers use its WebKit engine. "This is an experimental prototype that we are developing as part of an open source project with the goal to understand certain aspects of performance on iOS," said a Google spokesperson. "It will not be available to users and we'll continue to abide by Apple's policies."

Last summer GNOME invited people to voluntarily run the tool gnome-info-collect on their systems to send back (non-sensitive/non-identifiable) data about their system configurations. 2,560 people ran the tool, and they're now releasing the data.

Here's the distribution of distros for all 2,560 respondents:

Fedora: 1,376 (54.69%)
Arch: 469 (18.64%)
Ubuntu: 267 (10.61%)
Manjaro: 140 (5.56%)
EndeavourOS: 66 (2.62%)
Debian: 44 (1.75%)
openSUSE: 38 (1.51%)
Pop! 38 (1.51%)
Other: 78 (3.10%)


And the breakdown of hardware manufacturers (top four):

Lenovo: 516 (23.54%)
Dell: 329 (15.01%)
ASUS: 261 (11.91%)
HP: 223 (10.17%)


The site OMG! Linux pointed out that 90% of systems had Flatpak installed — (though it's enabled by default on Fedora, which was 54.69% of all the respondents). Some other interesting stats they noticed: - Most common default browser: Firefox (73.14%), Chrome (11.64%), Brave (4.76%). [Microsoft Edge was the default browser on 37 systems (1.51%) ]

- 83% of users have at least one (non-default) GNOME extension installed
- 'App Indicator' is the most popular extension (by 43% of those using extensions)

- GSConnect, User Themes, and Dash to Panel/Dock also widely used

- Most popular desktop apps: GIMP (58.48%), VLC (53.71%), Steam (53.40%)


[...] The popularity of GNOME extensions will surprise no-one. It is a solid indicator that the existing GNOME extension system is good at doing what it's there to: let users augment and extend their system in the ways they want.
GNOME's report adds that "it's exciting to see the popularity of new GNOME apps like Flatseal, To Do, Bottles, and Fragments."

One other interesting stat from their report: 55% of the participants were using Online Accounts, with Google the most common one added, followed by Nextcloud and Microsoft. But "Some of the account types had very little usage at all, with Foursquare, Facebook, Media Server, Flickr and Last.fm all being active on less than 1% of systems."

Phoronix compares the performance of Firefox and Chrome on the Linux desktop. They used recent releases (at default settings) for both browsers on an Intel Core i9 13900K "Raptor Lake" system with Radeon RX 6700XT graphics, concluding "out-of-the-box Google Chrome continues performing much better overall than Mozilla Firefox."

One area where Firefox does better out-of-the-box is around the HTML5 Canvas such as measured via the CanvasMark test case. For the demanding JetStream 2 benchmark as one of the most demanding browser tests currently, Chrome on Linux was 67% faster than Firefox on this same Intel Raptor Lake desktop.

Firefox did have a small win in the rather basic JavaScript Maze solver benchmark. Firefox at least was in a competitive space for the WebAssembly (WASM) benchmarks, but aside from that Google Chrome continues holding strong on Linux in the performance department.

Google has been dealt a significant blow in one of its key overseas markets. India's Supreme Court on Thursday declined to block an antitrust order that requires the Android-maker to make a series of changes that could topple its financial viability. From a report: India's apex court rejected to block the ruling against Google by the nation's antitrust watchdog Competition Commission of India. The court extended the deadline for enforcement of CCI's order by one week, however. The matter will now go back to the country's appellate tribunal, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), where Google previously failed to secure any relief.

The Supreme Court has directed NCLAT to make its decision by March 31. The challenge for Google is that unless NCLAT reaches a decision in Google's favor by this month, the tech giant will have to make a series of changes to Android. [...] The CCI has ordered Google to not require licensing of its Play Store to be linked with mandating installation of several Google apps such as Chrome and YouTube. The watchdog has also ordered Google to allow removal of all its apps from phones and give smartphone users the ability to change their search engine provider. The CCI also fined Google $162 million in its first order.

Google announced today that moving forward they will be allowing Rust code into the Chromium code-base, the open-source project that ultimately served as the basis for their Chrome web browser. Phoronix reports: Google is working to introduce a production Rust toolchain into their build system for Chromium and will be allowing Rust libraries for use within Chrome/Chromium. The timeframe for getting this all together is expected within the next year following a slow ramp. Google is backing Rust for Chromium to allow for simpler and safer code than "complex C++" overall, particularly around avoiding memory safety bugs. In turn using Rust should help speed-up development and improve overall security of the Chrome web browser. Initially they are focused on supporting interop in a single direction from C++ to Rust and for now will only be supporting third-party libraries for their Rust usage.