Chrome has been making some major inroads into the browser market share of both Internet Explorer and Firefox. It is now close to tied with Firefox and the trend seems to favor Chrome. This is no doubt due to Google leveraging its marketing power to push Chrome. The new Chromebooks will certainly help push the name recognition further.

I use both browsers regularly (8+ hours a day, side-by-side on dual monitors) and after a couple years I still find myself using Firefox first. I figured I would try and compile a mostly-objective list of the reasons why I prefer Firefox. This comparison is done for Chrome version 16 and Firefox version 9.

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The Flash Player download from Adobe's main website is not a compete installer. After running it, the installer's first step is to download the rest of itself. This generally isn't a problem, but it is useful to have the full standalone installer if you need to install Flash Player on an offline computer. It can also bypass the Adobe Flash Player Failed to Initialize error that sometimes occurs with the normal installer.

You can find the current version of the full Adobe Flash Player installer for all operating systems at the following link:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/fp_distribution3.html

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If you've downloaded the Adobe Reader installer from the main Adobe website, you've probably noticed that it is not a complete installer. After running it, the installer's first step is to download the rest of the installer. No, you're not the only one that finds this annoying.

Adobe does have full installers available, though they aren't easy to navigate to from Adobe's website. They are available on Adobe's FTP site, which you probably didn't know existed. The current version of Adobe Reader can be downloaded from the following directory:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/

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By default Google Chrome disables your extensions for Incognito windows. This is in general a good practice since extensions can collect and store private data. But for me, it is particularly irritating to not have Adblock Plus enabled. Opening an Incognito window feels like I'm being transported back in time to 2006 or something. Full-screen popups, flashing banner ads, "fake" links littered throughout a text document, and other horrors.

Luckily, you can easily enable your extensions in Incognito mode by going to Tools -> Extensions, clicking the little arrow to the left of the extension in mind, and then clicking "Allow in incognito":

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Facebook's Timeline is a major overhaul to the Facebook profile. For me, the Cover Picture is the most welcome new "feature", since it allows you to make your profile "yours", almost as much as you used to be able to do on MySpace (custom overlays notwithstanding).

Beyond this, the Timeline allows you to go back in time and see your previous activity without clicking "Older Posts" countless times. You can fill in old data if you want, even from dates before joining Facebook --or should I say, especially from dates before joining Facebook. After all, Facebook wants your entire life, not just since you joined. It's already data-mined the crap out of the last few years, and now it wants more.

On that note, is Facebook getting too ahead of itself by listing "Born" as the start of the timeline? Do they really want you to go back and add pictures of that painting you made in 5th grade?

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Whenever possible, I always link to and embed HD versions of YouTube videos. I do this primarily for the better 152kbps audio quality. YouTube has made some changes recently that have made it more difficult to link to and embed HD videos, but it's still doable.

Link to HD YouTube Videos

Linking directly to a high definition (HD) version of a YouTube video used to be done by adding "&fmt=" and 35, 22, or 37 at the end of the link. This no longer works, but you can still use "&hd=1", which will link to the 720p version of a video, if available. Here is an example of a link with "&hd=1" added to the end of it:


The following will also work:

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For those that might be curious, here are the percentages of both operating system and internet browser usage share among visitors of this site for all of 2011. This is based on visits (not hits).

Operating system percentage share:


Internet browser percentage share:

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This is a follow-up to my post on linking to and embedding HD YouTube videos. It goes more into depth on how video resolution affects the default playback quality, as well as the differences between the two new embedded players.

You may have noticed that YouTube has two embed players for the new embed code (version 3 of the player). There is a player with controls that fade away, leaving only a 3-pixel tall track position bar along the bottom, and a player with fixed, 30-pixel tall controls that do not fade away.

Here's how you can affect which player loads: If the width and height in your embed code are even multiples of either 16 x 9 or 4 x 3, the player with fade-away controls will load; otherwise, the player with the fixed controls will load. Apparently YouTube has no love for us 16 x 10 users. :(

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1. Reduce disk space and simplify code

When exporting images for your layout, be sure to select the best format. JPG is usually the best for photographs, while PNG works well for images that contain solid colors or few total colors, such as icons or cartoons. Don't just choose a quality level arbitrarily; instead, use an application that shows the quality and file size differences in real-time or side-by-side.

If you use GIF or PNG images, try reducing the total number of colors the image uses. You can often get away with 128 or less, without reducing the visual quality of the image. There is almost no limit to the level of micro-optimizations you can make, if you really want to get serious. In most programs, including Photoshop, you can specify the exact colors and number of colors to use. You may also want to keep the image compression efficiency in mind when designing your layout.

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Section targeting is used to help make your Google Adsense ads more relevant to your content, and in turn improve your clickthrough rate (CTR). To target a section of your site, simply surround it with these HTML comments:



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