Chrome App Launcher for Linux

In Chrome 36, the app launcher also works in Linux. Now this feature is available for all major desktop operating systems: Windows, Mac OS, Chrome OS and Linux.



To add the app launcher icon, Google suggests to "search your computer for Chrome App Launcher and

pin it to your system's launcher or panel for easy access." You first need to enable the App Launcher by adding a Chrome app from this page.



Here's a screenshot from Ubuntu 14.04:

Gmail's Special Phishing Warning

For some reason, Gmail displayed this phishing warning when opening an email newsletter: "Be careful with this message. It contains content that's typically used to steal personal information." There are two links that allow you to "Report this suspicious message" or "Ignore, I trust this message".

A help center article explains that Gmail "shows you a warning above any message that looks like a phishing scam but comes from an address in your Gmail contacts list. When a suspicious message like this is sent from an email address of someone on your contact list, it's possible that the person's email account was compromised and used without their permission to send a malicious message."



Google advises you to "read the message and decide if it seems like it was written by the sender. Consider whether it sounds like the person you know, contains suspicious links or content, or asks you to do unusual things like send money or provide personal details. If it seems like your contact's email account was compromised and used to send this message, please click Report this suspicious message within the warning. The message will be marked as 'sent from a compromised account,' and you'll send a report to the Gmail team to help us improve our detection of compromised accounts."



You may be wondering why Gmail doesn't flag the message as spam. Messages from your contacts are never moved to spam. In fact, that's one way to make sure that you receive messages from someone and they're not added to the spam folder: add the email address to your contacts.



I checked to see if the messages was sent by one of my contacts and the answer is no. That's strange, maybe this is a Gmail bug.

Redesigned Incognito Page in Chrome 36

Chrome 36 brings a redesigned incognito page with a bigger icon, a heading, shorter text and card interface. There are some changes to the text: Google removed "however, you aren't invisible" and "[going incognito doesn't hide your browsing from your] governments and other sophisticated attackers", but kept "your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit". Google also removed the text which informed users that extensions are disabled by default in the incognito mode.

Here's the old page (screenshot from Chrome 35):

Google Tests a Search Card for Live Events

There's a Help Center article about a Google experiment that shows relevant Hangouts on Air in Google Search. "We're rolling out an experiment where you can easily find YouTube live events or Hangouts on Air to watch by searching for the event on Google.com. For example, if an author is answering questions about their latest book in a Hangout on Air, you can search the author’s name to find and watch the event," informs Google.

Apparently, a live event will start to show up in search up to 3 hours before it starts. You can find a list of Hangouts on Air and YouTube live events.



"If the event is happening now, you can touch the play on the video to watch the event live. If the event is happening later in the day, click Yes under 'Are you going to watch?' to add the event to your Google Calendar."

Flash Warnings in Google Mobile Search

I still remember when Flash support was an important selling point for Android. While you can install Flash and use it even in Android KitKat, Adobe no longer updates it and Chrome doesn't support it.



Now Google decided to show warnings next to search results that use a lot of Flash content, but only for iOS and Android 4.1+ devices. "Starting today, we will indicate to searchers when our algorithms detect pages that may not work on their devices. For example, Adobe Flash is not supported on iOS devices or on Android versions 4.1 and higher, and a page whose contents are mostly Flash may be noted like this:"

The warning says: "Uses Flash. May not work on your device." You can tap "try anyway" or "learn more". The reason? "A common annoyance for web users is when websites require browser technologies that are not supported by their device. When users access such pages, they may see nothing but a blank space or miss out a large portion of the page's contents."



Google recommends developers to create modern multi-device websites using HTML5. For example, Google's Web Starter Kit is a simple framework that supports the Web Fundamentals best practices out of the box.

Google Forum Search, No Longer Available

Back in March, I posted some URLs that allowed you to get back some search features that were removed by Google from the search interface: forum search, recipe search and more. It looks like forum search is no longer available. "Google completely disabled it so now you can no longer filter Google search results by discussion forums," reports Barry Schwartz.

It's sad to see that Google removed a very useful feature that allowed you restrict results to forum threads, while keeping the app search feature, which mostly returns mobile apps and Chrome extensions.



As a workaround, you can add "forum" or "forum (topic OR thread)" to your queries.

Google Adds Support for Bitcoin Conversion

Google's currency conversion added support for bitcoin, a virtual currency introduced in 2009. If you search for [1 bitcoin to usd], [1 BTC in USD], [bitcoin eur], [convert 1000 gbp to bitcoin] and other similar queries, Google shows the interactive currency conversion card that also includes a historical chart.



Last month, "Google Finance partnered with Coinbase to launch a bitcoin price tracker that enabled BTC-to-fiat price conversions across a wide range of global currencies." This update uses the same data.

"Bitcoin is often referred to as a currency, but it does not conform to widely used definitions of money," suggests Wikipedia. "Economists generally agree that to qualify as money, something must be a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Bitcoin has some way to go if it wants to meet these criteria. It does best as a medium of exchange."



{ via Search Engine Land }