Latest from ITPro in Workspace

Google Workspace is getting a Gemini makeover – but prices are going to increase

george.fitzmaurice@futurenet.com (George Fitzmaurice) — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 11:09:09 +0000

Google has removed add-on fees for Gemini in Workspace, though the firm is upping the price of its plans to reflect the addition of this offering.

Gemini will be built into Workspace’s business and enterprise plans without the need to purchase pricey plan upgrades, which previously could add an additional $20 per user per month.

For example, a customer using the old annual ‘Business Standard’ plan with a Gemini Business add-on paid $32 per user, per month, compared with $12 per user, per month for the default Business Standard plan.

The new annual price of the Business Standard plan will increase by $2 though, from $12 per user, per month to $14. Google called this a simplification of the old price plan to bring the “added value” of Gemini to all Workspace customers.

“We believe AI is foundational to the future of work and its transformative power should be accessible to every business and every employee, at an affordable price,” Jerry Dischler, president of Cloud Applications, wrote in the announcement.

The pricing will take effect for new customers and on March 17 this year for those on monthly subscription plans. For those on annual and fixed-term plans, pricing effects will take place on renewal dates, unless renewal dates are earlier than March 17.

Small business customers will not be subject to the pricing changes at this time, Dischler said.

At the start of 2024, Google rolled out price changes specific to its monthly subscription-based plans, upping the cost of ‘Starter,’ ‘Standard,’ and ‘Plus’ business plans by $1.20, $2.40, and $3.60, respectively.

New pricing gives Google a competitive edge

Google’s decision to do away with add-on pricing is a bold move according to Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder, and may put the firm in a stronger position to compete with productivity suite rival Microsoft.

“Until Google’s announcement, embedded solutions required expensive add-on licenses. Google’s bold move here reminds us that products can evolve into features; viable offerings seek monetization in other ways; and tempts us to say Google failed, but it could be a competitive boon,” J.P. Gownder told ITPro.

While it may not be time to switch from Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace, Gownder said Workspace will now be more competitive with Microsoft 365.

RELATED WHITEPAPER

(Image credit: AWS)

Protect your applications while focusing on core business

“Attractive pricing matters. Especially when, at its new price, Google brings credible performance, a small but non-trivial roster of enterprise clients, and also some differentiated generative AI features, including the innovative NotebookLM and Vids, a video-creation generative AI tool,” Gownder said.

“Despite Google’s appeal, Microsoft 365’s ubiquity and quality remain hard to dislodge. Migrating M365 documents, SharePoint sites, and macros to Workspace remains a monumental effort. Microsoft will, however, feel pricing pressure,” he added.

Google Meet can now take notes so you don’t have to

Nicole Kobie — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 10:51:59 +0000

You can stop asking the intern to take notes during meetings — Google Meet has it covered.

The tech giant has launched a new feature in Google Meet called 'Take notes for me' that takes advantage of AI transcription to summarize meetings automatically.

The tool was first announced earlier this year amid a host of other generative AI features for Google Workspace, including lighting, translation, and backgrounds, but unlike those the note-taking tool was listed as "coming soon".

The company has now said the note-taking feature will begin rolling out to customers today.

Announcing the features earlier this year, Google said that 'Take notes for me' would "let you drop the pen and lean into the conversation instead of taking notes."

The feature will analyze a call or meeting in real time, creating a list of key points.

Notably, Google said this will enable users joining a call late to quickly catch up, while at the end of a meeting a summary is automatically generated and distributed among attendees.

Google added that companies will be able to configure how the tool works and that such data — which could be sensitive — is saved locally.

"Notes documents will be stored in the meeting owner’s drive folder and will follow the Meet retention policy that your organization has configured," the company said in a blog post.

Google Meet faces rival note-taking AI tools

Auto-generated meeting summaries aren't new, but are increasingly common in video conferencing software thanks to generative AI.

Transcription software Otter.ai added meeting summaries in 2022, for example, complete with the ability to link to calls in Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and even Google Meet for automated transcriptions and notes. Zoom now offers that feature natively via its AI Companion, as does Microsoft Teams when used with Copilot.

The move brings Google Meet up to speed with rival platforms, but also suggests independent software makers may again be cut out. Otter.AI and other third-party add-ons have offered this tool for years, but it's increasingly being offered in-house following the shift to generative AI in productivity suites.

How to access the new Google Meet features

To access these and the other generative AI features announced in April, users will need to have a Gemini Enterprise or Gemini Education Premium account, or upgrade their Workspace plans with the new AI Meetings and Messaging add-on for $10 a month per user.

RELATED WHITEPAPER

(Image credit: AMD)

Meet complex healthcare and life sciences workloads

To use the feature, admins need to configure Workspace by going to 'Gemini Settings' under 'Google Meet' in the Workspace admin console.

The admin setting will begin showing up from today, with rollout expected to finish by 21 August. It will be on by default.

Full end-user availability will be released soon, Google added.

Google’s Duet AI can now attend meetings so you don’t have to

itpro@futurenet.com (Ross Kelly) — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Google has announced a new Workspace feature that allows individuals to skip meetings without missing out on key discussions or action points.

The ‘take notes for me’ function is powered by the company’s Duet AI tool and will now automatically generate call transcripts, with the tool recapping key talking points within a discussion and highlighting “action items” outlined during a call.

Duet AI will also generate real-time video snippets during a call as part of the feature, Google said, enabling users to go back and refer to specific parts of a meeting.

Key features highlighted by Google include the “summary so far” and “attend for me” functions. The former of these will give latecomers to a meeting a “snapshot of everything they’ve missed”, Google said.

(Image credit: Google Cloud)

Meanwhile, if a user can’t attend a meeting, they can direct Duet AI to join the meeting on their behalf and provide a recap after the meeting.

The tech giant revealed that Duet AI for Workspace will be made generally available for customers starting today, who can experience a “no-cost trial” of the new features.

Google Meet, Chat, and Gmail will all be bolstered with new AI-driven capabilities helping to boost collaboration and streamline the cumbersome process of meetings.

“To help you better engage during meetings, we're removing the burden of note-taking and sending out recaps,” the firm said in a statement.

“Duet Al can capture notes, action items, and video snippets in real time with the new ‘take notes for me’ feature and it will send a summary to attendees after the meeting.”

Duet AI for Google Chat

Google Meet isn’t the only aspect of Workspace subject to Duet AI integration, the firm revealed.

Chat’s user interface is set for a refresh, along with the introduction of new shortcuts and an enhanced search function powered by Duet that will “let you stay on top of conversations”.

RELATED RESOURCE

(Image credit: Dell)

How the way we work will change the office of the future

Redefine the way your business operates and envision the office of the future.

DOWNLOAD FOR FREE

Using natural language input, Duet AI will enable users to ask specific questions about chat-related content and topics, provide automatic summaries of documents shared in a space, and even catch up on conversations with automated transcripts.

“With Duet Al in Chat as a real-time collaboration partner, you can get updates, insights, and proactive suggestions across your Google Workspace apps,” Google said.

“We plan for Duet Al to answer complex queries by searching across your messages and files in Gmail and Drive, summarize documents shared in a space, and provide a recap of missed conversations.”

AI collaboration tools

The integration of Duet AI in Workspace follows a spate of similar announcements from industry counterparts. Zoom recently announced two generative AI feature launches for its platform, including the Zoom IQ Meeting Summary and Zoom IQ Team Chat Compose functions.

Both of these provide users with automated meeting summaries and an AI-powered chat companion.

With Duet, however, Google appears to be directly butting heads with Microsoft. In May, Microsoft unveiled the integration of its own AI-powered Copilot assistant for Teams customers.

Not much separates Teams and Meet in terms of AI-related features following this announcement though. Both platforms now support AI-generated meeting summaries, “action point” highlights, and call recaps.

Meet’s real-time video snippets feature does represent a unique feature in this regard. However, the integration of Duet AI in Workspace and Microsoft’s Copilot across 365 products places both firms in a head-on battle with regard to AI-supported collaboration tools moving forward.

Google Workspace Review: A simple aesthetic with productivity in mind

ross.kelly@futurenet.com (Ross Kelly) — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 10:50:58 +0000

Editor's note: Google Workspace review

Original review date: 14 April 2023

Generative AI is now ubiquitous and no more so than within productivity suites. Following the likes of Microsoft 365 and Slack, at Google Cloud Next the tach giant introduced a host of new AI capabilities for Workspace. ITPro will test and review these new features later in the year when they become available.

Workspace previously used the 'Duet AI' label for its generative AI functions, but that has been binned off for the 'Gemini' banner where every feature will be tagged 'something for me'. This will be used across the most popular Workspace apps with features currently in preview and coming soon for Gmail, Meet, Docs, and Chat in 2024.

The previews include a 'take notes for me' feature in Meet which allows users to fully focus on their meetings without having to type or write anything. A similar feature is also coming for translations in June that will automatically translate captions in Meet. 'Translate for me' will have support for up to 69 languages, according to Google.

Original article: When Google launched its G-Suite productivity suite in 2016, it instantly positioned itself as a key challenger to the dominance of Microsoft. Fast forward to October 2020 with its notable rebrand to Google Workspace, and it became evidently clear that Google intended to cater to a remote and hybrid workforce.

Google Workspace is a valuable productivity suite for businesses of all sizes, ranging from large, multinational enterprises to small businesses. This collection of cloud-based tools can, at first glance, appear quite daunting.

But once up and running the benefits of platforms such as Gmail, Google Docs, synchronized calendars and more proves hugely beneficial to communication, collaboration, and overall workforce productivity.

Google Workspace offers three distinct Business plans: Starter, Standard, and Plus. Two Enterprise-grade plans – Standard and Plus – are also available. In this instance though, we'll be looking at the Business plan options and their respective pros and cons.

Google Workspace review: Deployment

Google provides a comprehensive and easy-to-use deployment guide for its Workspace Business packages in addition to administrator training and certification courses. To start this 10-stage process, administrators will want to open the Admin console and run a pilot, which is optional but recommended. This will enable you to try Google Workspace with a selected number of users to evaluate Gmail, test data migration, and assess mobile access. It's worth noting that this does not affect your current mail service.

If you chose to run a pilot (or skip), the process of adding users accounts is fairly straightforward. Admins can add users individually, or upload via spreadsheet. Google provides a raft of admin tools to synchronize user accounts with Microsoft Active Directory or another LDAP server.

Activating Gmail for your domain is the next advised step in the deployment process, and again, this is an easily traversed process for admins, making migration or initial deployment convenient and smooth. You will be required to change your domain MX records to direct mail to Google servers, however. Google also recommends admins add an SPF record to your domain settings during this stage of the process.

Migration tools are provided by Google to import existing emails, calendar events, and contacts to Google Workspace. Data can also be migrated directly from Microsoft Exchange, HCL Notes, or any other IMAP server. Alternatively, Google allows individual team members to import their data by themselves.

To Google's credit, Workspace deployment is a rather smooth process for admins, but the support doesn't end there. Once deployed, it offers a raft of training guides and resources featuring real-world customer examples to get users started with its suite of applications.

Google Workspace review: Pricing

The new AI capabilities will be an extra consideration for businesses, largely because they will come at an extra cost. For businesses starting or migrating to Google Workspace, there are four different packages to select – Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, and finally Enterprise – with different monthly costs for each.

Workspace is free for 14 days, then after that, you will need to pay $6 per user, per month for the entry-level Business Starter package, $12 per month for Business Standard, and $18 a month for Business Plus. Enterprise customers will have to talk to sales to haggle their exact pricing. For the Gemini extras, Google has said these will come at an extra cost of $10 per user, per month. At face value, it looks like a considerable fee for smaller businesses to accept annually.

For an SMB with a workforce of 200 people on the Business Standard edition, this would cost approximately $2,400 per month, or $28,800 annually.

It is worth noting that all three editions require a one-year minimum commitment. With this in mind, we recommend a thorough assessment of whether Google Workspace is the 'right fit' and catered to your individual needs.

Google Workspace Business review: User interface

Google Workspace boasts a slick user interface that is easy to navigate. While G-suite had its limitations and at times felt cluttered and obtrusive, Workspace has certainly improved.

Users can easily traverse through the Gmail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet applications via the toolbar situated on the left-hand side of the screen. This makes the process of switching between your email correspondence and workplace chats far easier and keeps your staple applications conveniently at hand to ensure staff are keeping up to date and communicating effectively.

(Image credit: Future)

Google recently issued an update to "simplify" the Workspace user experience across a raft of applications, including Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. These changes, which Google said aimed to "streamline the daily flow of work" have most certainly added a fresh new appearance. Google Docs, for example, now features a more simple and easy-to-navigate toolbar at the top of every document with updated command groupings that stand out more from a visual perspective.

Google Workspace Business review: Applications

Google Workspace provides a range of applications as standard. Most of these you will be familiar with, such as Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive, and Slides, as well as a dedicated Calendar, Chat, and Meet application.

These core apps are the heart of Google Workspace and are available in both a browser-based and mobile version. Notably, these aren't available as desktop apps, which is slightly inhibiting. However, users can use applications such as Google Docs and Sheets in an offline mode which offers users the chance to still use them if they're on the move or unable to access the web.

Workspace also has a range of fantastic third-party app integrations for businesses. These can be downloaded via the Workspace marketplace. Accounting software Xero, for example, integrates seamlessly with Workspace apps including Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Drive.

Other third-party applications that can be integrated with Workspace include: Asana, Okta, DocuSign, Trello, and Copper CRM.

Google Workspace Business review: Starter vs Standard vs Plus

The tiered system under which Google Workspace Business packages now operate can be a tricky process to navigate. But it's worth bearing in mind that these options will be based entirely on individual business needs. While all three offer services for up to 300 users, there are limitations with the two 'lower' tiers – particularly with regard to storage capacity for each individual user.

The Starter edition provides a rather basic office suite with up to 30GB storage for each user in addition to custom email address options and Business editions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive storage, Calendar, Meet video conferences, and a suite of other useful apps. Under this plan, video meetings with up to 100 people are also available. Administrative controls are also included, such as controls over user access, service policies, and mobile devices.

Given the price range for this package, this makes for a rather valuable suite of tools for an SMB. But compared to the other tiered options available, it could be argued that this is lacking in certain key areas.

The Business Standard edition of Google Workspace offers everything available in the aforementioned package, albeit with additional storage options and 'enhanced meeting features'. With 2TB of cloud storage for each user, this certainly provides far greater storage bandwidth for SMBs. Video meetings are also expanded to 150 people and, under this package, the option to record meetings and directly save them to Google Drive is included.

RELATED WHITEPAPER

(Image credit: Zscaler)

Implement zero trust security across your entire ecosystem

On the topic of Google Drive, this package also includes shared team drives, making it a far more viable option for teams aiming to create a more unified and collaborative workforce.

As the name suggests, the Business Plus edition provides the most comprehensive suite of tools available to users, with the addition of advanced controls and archiving capabilities for admins.

With 5TB of cloud storage for each user, this offers far greater storage bandwidth for organizations on this plan. Similarly, video meetings under the Business Plus edition can be expanded to up to 500 people, making it a viable option for both SMBs with large workforces and enterprises.

Premium analytics features, security controls, automated mobile device controls, and tracking features make the Business Plus edition a popular choice for larger SMBs seeking a deeper insight into workforce behavior and productivity.

Google Workspace review: Workspace vs Microsoft 365

The 'great other' to Google Workspace is Microsoft 365. While there are advantages to both, and the decision to opt for either can be wholly dependent on your individual business needs, we found that Google Workspace had a number of key advantages.

In particular, pricing could be an issue when comparing the two office suites. While this is a marginal difference, for SMBs specifically the overall costs can begin to add up. To add to this, Microsoft offers a far broader range of plans, meaning the process of choosing what's right for your business can become rather complicated.

Microsoft 365's Business plans are ideal for SMBs and comparable to the business packages offered by Google. These also come in a similar multi-tiered system, starting with Business Basic for £5 per user per month.

Meanwhile, Business Standard and Business Premium stand at a rate of $12.50 and $20 per user, per month respectively. The Microsoft 365 for Apps package available for businesses is also priced $8.25 per user per month. This includes desktop versions of the staple Office apps.

(Image credit: Future)

Although Workspace offers clear advantages with regard to price, Microsoft 365 does have its own distinct benefits - particularly with regard to storage capacity. Users of Microsoft 365 are offered 1TB of cloud storage capacity for individual users across all of its plans, giving it a notable edge in comparison.

Similarly, Outlook email storage stands at 50GB as standard, compared to the 30GB Google offers through its basic package. Additionally, email storage is separate from overall capacity with 365, meaning that email correspondence won't clog up space in OneDrive.

Core applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are also available in browser, mobile, and desktop versions. If you're keen on using desktop applications and avoid operating entirely on browser, then this might be a key differentiator for your business.

Google Workspace Business review: Making your decision

Ultimately, the factors which lead you to choose Google Workspace over Microsoft 365 will be dependent on a number of reasons - be it pricing, functionality, or ease of use.

Google Workspace is simplistic in both its design and functionality, making it easy to use for SMBs in the long-term. It is this simplistic design that gives it great charm in comparison to Microsoft, however, which has often been noted for its overwhelming UI and cluttered appearance.

Spanish spyware outfit uncovered, develops exploits for Windows, Chrome, and Firefox

Zach Marzouk — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 15:20:16 +0000

Google has tied a previously unknown spyware operation to a private company in Spain after receiving an anonymous tip-off regarding the malicious activity.

Its Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said the evidence suggests that Barcelona-based Variston IT has developed an exploit framework which leveraged zero days in Windows Defender, Firefox, and Chrome.

Android spyware disguised as 'system update' app discovered Mysterious MacOS spyware discovered using public cloud storage as its control server NSO Group reportedly hacked multiple US officials

Google said the operation tied to Variston IT had developed the Heliconia framework which itself was split into smaller frameworks that exploited different systems and applications, like Windows and Chrome. The product gives customers all the tools needed to deploy a payload to a target device.

The frameworks included mature source code that could deploy the exploits. The first was Heliconia Noise, a web framework used to deploy an exploit for a Chrome renderer bug, followed by a sandbox escape.

Heliconia Soft was a separate web framework that dropped a malicious PDF to exploit a vulnerability in Windows Defender. The third and final framework was called Files - it consisted of a set of exploits targeting Firefox versions on both Windows and Linux systems.

The three companies targeted in the exploit, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google, fixed the vulnerabilities in 2021 and early 2022. Google said it hadn’t detected active exploitation of the now-patched vulnerabilities, but instead predicted that they were used as zero-days in earlier attacks.

The tech giant only became aware of the Heliconia framework when it received an anonymous submission to its Chrome bug reporting programme.

RELATED RESOURCE

The long road ahead to ransomware preparedness

Getting to the bigger truth

FREE DOWNLOAD

“The submitter filed three bugs, each with instructions and an archive that contained source code,” said Google TAG researchers in a blog post. “They used unique names in the bug reports including, ‘Heliconia Noise,’ ‘Heliconia Soft’, and ‘Files'.

"TAG analysed the submissions and found they contained frameworks for deploying exploits in the wild and a script in the source code included clues pointing to the possible developer of the exploitation frameworks, Variston IT.”

Heliconia Noise, for example, leaked the name of the company in a line of code that prevented the framework from generating binaries containing strings such as 'Variston'.

The same for loop in Heliconia Noise's code also leaked the aliases of the developers who worked on the project: majinbuu, janemba, and freezer - all references to characters in the Dragon Ball manga franchise.

Google said that commercial spyware is used by governments to spy on journalists, human rights activists, and political opposition through its advanced surveillance abilities. The tech giant is aiming to disrupt the threat of these types of companies to protect users and raise awareness of the industry, it said.

IT Pro has contacted Variston for comment. It appears to be registered at an address in Barcelona and was founded by Jayaraman Ramanan and Ralf Dieter Wegener in 2018, according to Datos Cif, a Spanish database containing information about companies. Deloitte is also named as its auditor.

25 Google Workspace tips and tricks for small business

Alexis James — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 10:14:22 +0000

Offering an impressive suite of productivity applications and management tools, Google Workspace is fast becoming the favored cloud-based productivity platform for all manner of businesses. Though small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often get the most out of it, there’s plenty on offer for larger enterprises, including one of the best email providers out there, Gmail.

Workspace can be a lot to take on board, especially considering the breadth of platforms on offer. But don’t let that fool you - once it's set up, Google Workspace is particularly easy to use and simple to understand. To illustrate this point, we’ve put together a quick-fire list of all the most useful Workspace tips and tricks and arranged them by Workspace platform. Once you’ve read it, you’ll hopefully better understand what Workspace can do and why it's still the best Microsoft 365 alternative.

1. Create a bespoke email address in Gmail

Providing your workforce with individual Gmail accounts is a clear must for any company in the first stages of setting up its Workspace environment. With Google’s platform, however, there’s the added bonus of being able to tailor staff email addresses to reflect the company brand.

2. Utilize Google’s ‘Help me write’ tool in Gmail

(Image credit: Google Press)

If you’ve got access to Google Workspace Labs, then you’ll be able to use Gmail’s ‘Help me write’ tool. Speed up your daily office admin tasks by getting Google’s AI to draft you a generic email for a business contact introduction or meeting request.

3. Get your Google Calendar agenda direct to your inbox through Gmail

Go one step further than a simple prompt for your next meeting and have your entire Google Calendar schedule emailed to you every morning. Set this up through ‘event notifications’ in Google Calendar and start getting on top of your daily agenda.

4. Receive a read receipt on emails sent through Gmail

Sometimes it can be useful to know when someone’s read your email, especially if the content is time-sensitive or urgent. By selecting ‘More options’ on the bottom right of the screen in Gmail, you can then hit ‘Request read receipt’ to get confirmation of whether your email has been read.

5. Schedule send on Gmail

Have you got an important message to send that you know you won't be at work to email? Or maybe it won't be relevant to the sender yet? Create your email as usual in Gmail but hit the down arrow next to send and press ‘schedule send’ to choose when your email goes out.

6. Save time typing

When composing an email in Gmail, you can be more efficient by using Google’s Smart Compose and Smart Reply, which use algorithms to offer suggestions on words and phrases. The built-in spelling and grammar check will also reduce typos.

7. Mute conversations on Gmail

It’s common to be copied into an email chain that is no longer relevant to you, yet continues to flood your inbox. With Gmail there’s an easy fix: simply select mute from the more options button, archiving the conversation away from your inbox.

8. Create groups

(Image credit: Google Press)

Save time composing mass communication emails by creating a mailing list in Gmail, known as a group. It’ll save you from having to input the same email addresses time and again. Simply head to your contacts list, select those you want to add, and save the group as a label.

9. Send meeting invitations with Google Calendar

One example of Workplace’s seamless integration between applications is being able to send meeting invitations via Calendar. Simply hit create, input desired dates and attendees, and watch as invitations are automatically sent through Gmail.

10. Hide the guest list

For public events, you might wish to keep your guest list private so that only the admin can see invitation responses. Simply click edit event and untick "See guest list."

11. Use multiple calendars on Google Calendar

Google Calendar allows different teams and departments across larger organizations to benefit from using individual calendars that are specific to their schedules. At the same time, staff can overlay other teams’ calendars on their own to see what other people are doing or when they’re in a Google Meet.

12. Attach Google Docs to Google Calendar

Ensure that every member of staff attending a meeting is always up to date with exactly what they need to know by attaching the relevant documents to a meeting’s notes. That way, everyone on the call can follow along with the material as the meeting takes place.

13. Revise revisions on Google Docs

(Image credit: Google Press)

Google Docs allows up to 10 people to edit a file simultaneously, with up to 200 viewing. If you decide that some newer edits haven’t quite worked, version history makes it easy to switch back to previous iterations of the document. You can even name revisions to locate them more easily.

14. Hide your activity

RELATED WHITEPAPER

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Accelerate time to resolution and improve CX

A standard feature on Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides is to track all user activity in the activity dashboard. But if you’d rather limit this, you can do so via the activity dashboard privacy settings under tools. There you’ll see settings to switch off your view history—either for a single document or every time you use Workspace—to ensure you’ll no longer be seen in the activity dashboard.

15. Simple sign ups using Google Forms

(Image credit: Google Press)

Utilize Google Forms to create all manner of engagements with your staff. This could be done in a variety of ways, such as getting staff to sign up for a new training program or getting employees to fill in expense requests.

16. Create Heatmaps

For more visible context to your data, use Sheets’ heatmaps function by highlighting your chosen range, then selecting "Color Scale" from the conditional formatting options under the format menu.

17. Open Microsoft files on Google Drive

A great feature of Workspace is that it allows users to work with Microsoft files, even if they don’t have Office installed. So if someone sends you a Word file, simply save it in Google Drive - Google's cloud service - open it, and click "Save as Google Docs."

18. Send large attachments

(Image credit: Google Press)

Gmail may appear to have an attachment restriction of only 25MB, but you can overcome this by using Drive. Simply save the file in Drive, then select it using the Drive button when composing an email: et voila, you can now send attachments of up to 10GB.

19. Create shared folders on Google Drive

Tailor who will see what with Drive’s shared folders option, which allows you to select exactly which users can access the folder. You can also restrict access to a single created group (see tip 23 above), or open it up to anyone with a link.

20. Get staff usage data

If your business is new to Google Workspace, Insights can provide handy analytics on staff usage. Admin can get crucial oversight on levels of adoption, collaboration, and productivity, and spot areas where more instruction is required.

21. Protect your data using Google Endpoint

Google Endpoint offers vital security management for all staff devices. It means that if an employee loses their phone, you can use Endpoint to remotely lock a lost phone or even wipe it completely, securing your company’s data.

22. Compile audit reports with Google Vault

(Image credit: Google Press)

Data policies are increasingly important for businesses, and with the Vault archiving tool, you can ensure your data policies are adhered to. With Vault, you can dictate data retention timeframes, restrict user access, and even compile audit reports.

(Image credit: Google Press)

With Workspace’s Currents killed off last year, Spaces and Google Chat have been integrated more heavily into Gmail as a replacement for the staff social media. Spaces now come with more features to improve business communications and collaborations.

24. Create Chat rooms in Google Chat

In addition to direct messages to contacts, Google Chat’s rooms functionality allows users to curate their own channels based on subjects or teams. Admins can send invitations and restrict entry, with up to 8,000 members permitted.

25. Use chat in Gmail

If your company employees use Chat as their main messaging tool, it’s worth noting that users don’t always need to open the app. Instead, you can use Chat within Gmail itself, keeping all communications in one window.

Summary

Now that you’ve got 25 new Google Workspace tips and tricks up your sleeve, you and your employees will be able to reap the productivity benefits of using Workspace to its full potential. Now read 10 best features of Google Workspace for small businesses.

Android adds drag and drop features to tablet OS

Bobby Hellard — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 09:28:45 +0000

Google has introduced new Workspace features for Android tablets that allow users to share more across Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Keep apps.

Google launches Pixel 6a and new mobile wallet at I/O developer event The evolution of Android: from tablets to digital signage Tablets buyer's guide

The announcements are part of Google's plans to make Android easier to use on tablets and it follows the introduction of Android 12L earlier this year. Many of the announcements were teased at Google's I/O developer conference back in May.

RELATED RESOURCE

How to choose APM software for your business

A market guide to Asset Management Performance software

FREE DOWNLOAD

All the new features and capabilities are aimed at improving the experience of Workspace on tablets. One of the most notable new features is the ability to drag and drop text or images across apps in split screen mode. For example, users can take text from Chrome or Sheets and drop that straight into an existing document or spreadsheet. Users can even upload links to Drive files simply by dragging and dropping them over.

Slit screen mode will also now allow for two Drive windows to be open side-by-side. To do so, users need to select the three-dot menu on and Drive file and tap 'Open in a new window'. This lets users access information from other Drive files without having to click in and out of different tabs.

For people that use physical keyboards with their tablets, Google has also added a range of keyboard shortcuts. These are things like select, cut, copy, paste, undo and redo and they aim to help users navigate around Drive, Docs, Sheets and slides without having to take their hands off the keyboard.

The new updates will roll out to Android tablets over the next few weeks, according to Android senior director of product management, Scott Blanksteen.

"And stay tuned for more updates as we continue to add new features for Google apps on Android's larger screens," Blanksteen said in a blog post.

Google adds new security vendor plugins for Chrome, improved Chrome OS policy controls for IT admins

Connor Jones — Fri, 27 May 2022 10:25:36 +0000

Google Chrome Enterprise has announced a swathe of new features for the Chrome browser and Chrome OS to help IT teams deploy greater security controls across staff devices.

Leading the new announcements is an array of new integrations with popular cyber security vendors’ products allowing them to be used seamlessly in Chrome OS and in the Chrome browser.

RELATED RESOURCE

Netsuite integration checklist

Understand your integration needs

FREE DOWNLOAD

Bundled under the moniker of Chrome Enterprise Connectors Framework, four new integrations have been announced, with more currently in testing, across three key security pillars.

Netskope’s Security Cloud is one of the new integrations in the identity and access pillar, joining Okta Identity Engine’s policy support for Chrome OS, which was already available.

BlackBerry’s UEM and Samsung Knox are also both new, sitting in the endpoint management pillar, and will allow IT teams to better manage Chrome OS devices from one area.

VMware’s Workspace ONE will soon be updating its existing integration to the new Chrome Policy API and will be available in a testing programme soon.

Splunk’s Cloud Platform integration is the final new product available to IT teams to bolder their security insights and reporting. Google said it will provide insights into risky events in the workplace environment such as malware downloads and the re-use of vulnerable passwords.

Chrome OS gets enterprise overhaul in 10th anniversary update Are cloud-based PCs the future of the enterprise? Chrome OS Flex turns old PCs and Macs into Chromebooks

Palo Alto Netowrks and CrowdStrike integrations are also expected to join Splunk’s soon after, once they pass through the Chrome Enterprise Trusted Tester Programme.

Google has also introduced a new category for ‘security and trust’ that allows IT teams to search for other Google-validated integrations that strengthen security and assist companies in moving to a Zero Trust model.

New security improvements are coming directly to Chrome OS too, in the form of enhanced policy controls. IT admins will now be able to define rules for users actions in a way that helps prevent data leakage.

Such actions include copy and paste, screen capturing, and printing. Chrome OS will be able to trigger controls on actions that could lead to data leakage or data theft on endpoints.

The new features precede Chrome Enterprise Day on 8 June - a one-day event for IT teams interested in running Chrome OS more securely across their organisation.

The event will offer sessions for all types of Chrome users, from basic Chrome browser users to teams refreshing old hardware with Chrome OS Flex.

Google Workspace update adds Meet calls to Docs and Sheets, chat threads to Spaces

Bobby Hellard — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 16:00:07 +0000

Google has announced a spate of new features for Workspace to make it a more "equitable and productive" experience.

The changes include new encryption options on Google Meet and an integration of the video conferencing platform for services such as Docs and Sheets.

Google Workspace is now available for everyone The new hybrid office Google Workspace adds Jira and AppSheet integrations

Many of these changes are aimed at improving the experience of Workspace and Meet for remote workers, with an emphasis on inclusion. They range from "fun" additions, such as new emoji reactions during calls to more substantial features to bring dispersed workforces closer together.

Starting with collaboration updates, in the coming weeks users will be able to make calls with the Google Meet app directly in Docs, Sheets, or Slides. So when collaborating in Docs, for example, users can instantly start a meeting without leaving the tab they're in and speak to and see their coworker.

While presenting, users will also be able to see their audience while they navigate different tabs like Sheets or even Gmail with a new 'Picture-in-picture' feature that runs on the Chrome browser. This will allow up to four video tiles of meeting attendees to appear in a floating window that can sit on top of other applications. So users can still send messages in Gmail while talking to teammates.

(Image credit: Google Blog)

The calls themselves have also had a security boost, with an option for client-side end-to-end encryption, a feature that is currently in beta but should be fully available in May. The aim here is to give users direct control over encryption keys and there will be an option for end-to-end encryption for all meetings, later in the year.

There will also be updates to Spaces, which is Google's Slack-like chat app. 'Inline threading', which Google says has been a "top request" from enterprise customers, will allow users to respond to specific comments and keep dialogue separate from the main channel, similar to how Slack's chat functions work.

RELATED RESOURCE

How to do hybrid work right

Overcoming challenges in the transition to hybrid work

FREE DOWNLOAD

Last week, Google launched a feature that enables users to invite others to join a Space via a shared link, but later this year it is upgrading this functionality with a search function. Users will be able to search across their organisation for a specific Space to join. What's more, there will also be an increase in team size limits, which will be going up to 8,000. Later in the year, that number will be pushed even higher to 25,000, the company said.

Content moderation features will also be coming in the next few weeks, such as the ability to designate managers and guidelines for specific Spaces as well as capabilities for administrators to delete unwanted Spaces.

Google patches second Chrome browser zero-day of 2022

Connor Jones — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 09:24:22 +0000

Google has now patched the second actively exploited zero-day vulnerability in its Chrome browser this year.

Most of the details about the security vulnerability were left unpublished by Google, but the company confirmed it was a type confusion flaw, tracked as CVE-2022-1096, found in the V8 Javascript engine.

What's behind the explosion in zero-day exploits? Google Chrome update fixes zero-day under active exploitation Apple fixes array of iOS, macOS zero-days and code execution security flaws

Type confusion issues occur when a product’s code is fed objects that aren’t verified, and using these objects without type-checking can create type confusion. In some cases, code execution can be achieved when wrong function pointers or data are fed into certain parts of a codebase.

“Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix,” said Google Chrome in a blog post. “We will also retain restrictions if the bug exists in a third party library that other projects similarly depend on, but haven’t yet fixed.”

The Google Chrome Stable Channel has been updated to version 99.0.4844.84 across Windows, Mac, and Linux, and users should start to see their browsers update “over the coming days/weeks,” Google said.

The vulnerability was reported on 23 March which prompted a swift response from Google Chrome which released a patch two days later on 25 March.

Being based on the Chromium engine, Microsoft released a separate notice informing Edge browser users that it was also vulnerable to the zero-day exploit. Microsoft rolled out a patch on 26 March for its browser.

RELATED RESOURCE

Introducing the zero trust edge model for security and network services

Get a better understanding of emerging zero trust solutions

FREE DOWNLOAD

The latest patch fixes the second zero-day vulnerability found in the Chrome browser in nearly as many months. Google released a wave of patches earlier in February addressing seven high-severity security issues among which was the first zero-day of the year.

Tracked as CVE-2022-0609 and carrying a CVSSv3 score of 9.8/10, the initial zero-day was also under active exploitation at the time of discovery and was a UAF in animation flaw - such vulnerabilities can typically lead to code execution on victim machines.

Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook review: A confident convertible

dale.walker@futurenet.com (ITPro) — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 12:45:29 +0000

The Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook has a lot to live up to. The company’s IdeaPad Flex 5 was one of our favourite Chromebooks of last year, thanks to its fantastic value and superb display. The original IdeaPad Duet - which this convertible follows on from - was similarly appealing, and the Duet 5 Chromebook improves on last year’s offering in several important ways.

Let’s start with the obvious change: it’s bigger. The original Duet Chromebook featured a 10.1in display, which inevitably meant that its detachable keyboard also measured around 10in diagonally. This rules it out for people who don’t have much dexterity in their hands or don’t want to type with hunched-up claws.

With a 13.3in screen to press up against, the Duet 5 Chromebook’s keyboard is much more like those found on ultraportables. The flipside? At this size, and with a 16:9 screen ratio, the Duet 5 is unwieldy as a tablet. That’s in part due to its 700g weight (1kg with the keyboard), which is 250g more than the Duet. Both are equally slim, measuring just over 7mm thick, but this means that things have flipped: the Duet was better as a tablet, the Duet 5 is better as a laptop.

As ever with this form of design, you shouldn’t expect a perfect on-the-knees typing experience. It’s far better on a flat surface, where you don’t notice the flimsiness of the design. Nor does it compare well to laptops for the feel of the keys, with a flat action that lacks travel. Finally, note that the keys on the Duet 5 Chromebook keyboard aren’t backlit. It’s size alone that gives this keyboard appeal.

The trackpad could also be better. Our fingers encountered enough friction to make swiping and gesturing uneven; you’ll get used to it after a while, as you learn to adjust the amount of pressure you’re applying, but there shouldn’t be any need to go through such a learning curve.

Another criticism laid at the door of last year’s Duet Chromebook – that the magnetic kickstand could be a pain to extend at times – still remains. A pullable tab or lanyard could easily fix this deficiency, or you can pick up Microsoft’s Surface Adaptive Kit as this will work with any device, not just the Surface Pro 8.

The magnetised backplate on the Duet 5 includes a small cutaway for a Lenovo Active Pen stylus to clip to the back, but note that the stylus doesn’t come with the £500 model, which includes 4GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage. However, it is bundled with the £550 version, and that has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of eMMC storage. At those prices, there’s little reason to choose the cheaper option.

When last year’s Duet cost £300, however, you may wonder where all your money is going – and the obvious answer is the display. The previous 10.1in IPS panel was a great choice for the price, but here you’re buying an OLED panel, and it’s gorgeous. For example, while both Duets promise a peak brightness of 400cd/m2, the difference in punch and perceived brightness with this OLED display is incredible. Lenovo has reduced the resolution to 1,920 x 1,080 from 1,920 x 1,200, but the end result is still admirably sharp.

The display isn’t the only thing that’s been upgraded, with the Duet 5 stepping up to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen2 processor - as seen in Acer’s Chromebook Spin 513 - from the MediaTek P60T chip in last year’s Duet. Both are high-efficiency ARM-based chips, so neither is going to pack the same kind of raw performance as an Intel Core i3 processor, which some of the beefier Chromebooks feature.

For context, the Duet 5’s JetStream 2 score of 83 puts it ahead of the Celeron N4500-powered Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go, but is half the speed of the Asus Chromebook CX9 with its Core i7 chip. It’s a similar story in the Octane 2 JavaScript test, where the Lenovo returned 23,798. Mid-table respectability, in other words.

Windows would be better running Chrome OS Chrome OS Flex turns old PCs and Macs into Chromebooks Microsoft takes aim at Chrome OS with launch of Windows 11 SE

But, crucially, the Duet 5 is twice as fast as the sometimes-sluggish Duet. It finished the Kraken JavaScript benchmark in 1,845ms, compared to the original Duet’s time of 3,940ms. And more important than such results is that this Chromebook feels reasonably snappy in daily use.

So, while not the most powerful Chromebook, the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 packs enough of a punch to compete with the Chromebook pack. Along with outstanding battery life of 16hrs 20mins in our video-rundown test, a gorgeous display and a new form factor that improves on last year’s model, this machine is almost everything you could ask for in a budget Chrome OS convertible.

Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 specifications

Processor	8-core 2.55GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2
RAM	4GB/8GB LPDDR4 RAM
Graphics adapter	Adreno 618 graphics
Storage	128GB/256GB eMMC Flash storage
Screen size (in)	13.3in
Screen resolution	1,920 x 1,080
Screen type	OLED
Touchscreen	Yes
Memory card slot	N/A
3.5mm audio jack	Yes
Graphics outputs	2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1
Other ports	Pogo pin connector
Web Cam	5MP front camera, 8MP rear camera
Speakers	4 x 1W Stereo Speakers
Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi 6
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5.1
NFC	N/A
Dimensions, mm (WDH)	306 x 7.2 x 187mm (tablet only)
Weight (kg) - with keyboard where applicable	1kg
Battery size (Wh)	42Wh
Operating system	Chrome OS

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Cheap and mostly cheerful

Mike Jennings — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 13:31:14 +0000

The Acer Chromebook Spin 513 is a Google-powered hybrid that only costs £332 exc VAT. That makes it one of the cheapest Chrome OS machines around, and it’s ideal if you want browser-based computing without spending loads of cash.

At this price, though, there’s always the chance that too much has been compromised to cut costs – so we’re always wary when affordable models arrive on the test-bench.

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Design

Acer’s machine addressed our fears with an impressive design – the Spin looks more luxurious than its £332 exc VAT price tag suggests. A deep blue matte finish coats its external surfaces, and the lid and trackpad have slick chrome-effect bevelled edges.

The dropped hinge enhances the slick aesthetic, and smooth hinge movement makes it easy to swing this device into tent or tablet modes. And, with a weight of 1.2kg and a body that’s just 15.5mm thick, the Spin is never cumbersome.

The Spin is slimmer and lighter than the pricier Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5, and it undercuts Acer’s own Spin 713. It even compares well with the tiny, bargain-basement Asus Chromebook CX1, although that 11.6in notebook is narrower than the Acer.

There’s only one issue when it comes to design: the Spin’s build quality. If you press on the rear of the display there’s noticeable desktop distortion, and the base is easy to flex. A protective sleeve will fix the issue and it’s no surprise that this sub-£400 notebook feels a bit flimsy, but it’s still disappointing given the premium aesthetic.

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Keyboard and trackpad

The lack of robust design is apparent on the keyboard, too – typing is a bouncy experience, and the keys feel light. The dainty buttons are still good enough to handle day-long typing sessions though, and elsewhere the Spin has the conventional Chromebook layout, with a Search button on the left-hand side and clear symbols on the function row. It’s backlit, too, and the power button is helpfully shunted to the laptop’s right-hand edge, so you won’t accidentally hit it while typing.

Unsurprisingly, the rival IdeaPad has a better keyboard, but there’s little to choose between the 513 and its more expensive Spin stablemate. This keyboard is also far better than the typing gear inside the cheap Asus CX1.

The trackpad, meanwhile, has perfect gesture tracking and an accurate surface, and the slightly soft buttons don’t prevent it from being perfectly usable.

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Display

Above the keyboard you’ll find a 13.3in IPS touchscreen with a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. That figure is fine for ordinary work, but this affordable machine returned middling quality levels.

The panel’s contrast ratio of 1,038:1 is high enough to ensure decent depth and punch, and the screen’s Delta E of 2.45 is good enough for anyone bar professional designers. The colour temperature of 7,342K brings a slight pallid tone to the panel, though, and the display only rendered a middling 77.4% of the sRGB colour space. Meanwhile, the brightness level of 301cd/m2 is only good enough for indoor use, and the panel has an extremely glossy finish that proves irritating if you do lots of work beneath bright lights.

The Spin’s contrast and resolution ensure that the display can handle commonplace work, but if you do want a wider and more accurate colour gamut for tougher creative workloads, the Lenovo and Spin 713 are both far better – and the latter has a higher resolution and brighter backlight.

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Hardware and performance

The Spin 513 also struggles to compete with its rivals on the inside, too. This notebook deploys a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c with eight cores and a 2.4GHz clock speed, and the SoC sits alongside 4GB of memory and a 64GB SSD.

That moderate hardware returned scores of 592 and 1,674 in Geekbench’s single- and multi-core benchmarks, and both results are comfortably slower than the Lenovo IdeaPad and the Acer Spin 713 – the former with an Intel Core i5 processor and the latter relying on Core i3 silicon. Indeed, the Spin 513 was only able to outpace the Asus CX1’s feeble Celeron chip.

Those benchmark results may not impress, but in fairness, the Acer can manage everyday tasks well enough. We tested the machine with simultaneous Office apps, media players, social media sites and email clients, and the Spin didn’t show any sluggishness.

That’s quite clearly the 513’s limit, though – it was noticeably slower when we tried some photo-editing, and its 64GB SSD will quickly fill if you want to tackle creative tasks or install loads of extra apps.

Acer produces a version of this device with 8GB of memory and a 128GB SSD, but that costs £416 exc VAT and it relies on the same processor, so it still won’t be able to cope with tougher workloads. If you do need that kind of power, the Intel and AMD processors used elsewhere are far more capable, even if they’re a bit more expensive.

Battery life is more encouraging however, and in our 170cd/m2 video playback test, the Acer lasted for 12hrs 25mins - the equal of the Spin 713 and slightly ahead of the Lenovo and Asus CX1 devices.That’s a good result for a low-cost Chromebook, and you’ll be able to get through a day of work with this machine. And even though that figure declines slightly if you push the hardware and run the screen at full brightness, you’ll still see ten hours of life.

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Ports and features

The Spin has two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C ports - one on either side - which both support DisplayPort, and can charge the device. The left-hand edge has a full-size USB port, and the right-hand side has the power button and volume rocker. Interestingly, the left-hand edge has a SIM card slot – although this more affordable 513 only supports 3G SIM cards. If you want 4G, you’ll need the £416 exc VAT version.

That physical connectivity can match any competitor, and the SIM slot is a welcome addition, but beyond this the Acer disappoints. It’s got dual-band 802.11ac wireless and Bluetooth 5, but faster Wi-Fi 6 is more common. The 513 has no HDMI, no microSD slot, and no fingerprint reader. There’s no Kensington Lock slot, and the 720p webcam has no facial recognition and no privacy shutter. The speakers are fine for background noise and basic media, but they’re tinny and weedy.

The Lenovo and Spin 713 both have better internal connectivity. Lenovo’s IdeaPad also has a webcam privacy shutter, an HDMI output, an SD card reader, and even a fingerprint reader on some models. Impressively though, the Spin will receive automatic updates from Google until June 2029.

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Verdict

Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 hands-on review: 360 degrees of portability MWC 2022: Lenovo unveils its first Arm-based ThinkPad boasting 29 hour battery life Microsoft Surface Go 3 review: Boldly going where we’ve already gone before

The Acer Chromebook Spin 513 looks superb, and it’s thinner, lighter, and thriftier than its rivals. It’s got a reasonable screen, components that can deal with everyday tasks, and all-day battery life. It easily switches position, and it’s worthwhile if you want an inexpensive and compact hybrid for all-day working – even if it does falter when it comes to build quality and connectivity.

If you want to go beyond those tasks, though, we wouldn’t recommend the Spin 513. Instead, consider the Spin 713 and Lenovo IdeaPad – they cost a bit more, but they’ve got much more power and better screens.

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 Specifications

Processor	2.4GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c
RAM	4GB LPDDR4
Graphics	Adreno 618
Storage	64GB SSD
Display	13.3in 1,920 x 1,280 touch IPS
Operating system	Chrome OS
Connectivity	Dual-band 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 5
Ports	2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C/Power delivery/DisplayPort, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x audio
Dimensions	310 x 209 x 15.5mm (WxDxH)
Weight	1.2kg
Warranty	1yr RTB

Google says Chrome is now faster than Safari on Apple Silicon

Connor Jones — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 11:42:21 +0000

Google said on Monday that its Chrome browser now beats the performance of Safari on Apple hardware, according to Apple’s own benchmarking tests.

The current version of Chrome, Chrome 99, is also now reportedly the fastest browser ever recorded on Apple’s Speedometer benchmark too, with a score of 300.

Best web browsers 2023: Google Chrome vs Microsoft Edge vs Firefox Google reveals five high-risk flaws in Chrome browser Google Chrome update fixes zero-day under active exploitation

This means Google’s latest browser, long known for being resource-intensive and prone to crashing, is not only faster than Safari but also now the fastest browser on Apple hardware.

Apple’s dedicated Safari webpage claims its browser is “the world’s fastest” but added in the fine print that testing was carried out between August and September last year. Regardless, Google will be pleased with its feat given Safari was considered the much faster choice for Apple users since the launch of the M1 processors.

Google credited the landmark performance score to a number of improvements, chief among which was the enablement of ThinLTO in Chrome 99 - a build optimisation technique that “inlines speed-critical parts of the code base, even when they span multiple files or libraries,” said Max Christoff, senior director at Chrome Engineering.

Enabling ThinLTO led the engineers to achieve a 7% performance boost over current Safari builds but coupled with graphics optimisations, Chrome’s performance received an additional 15% increase.

Other areas in which Chrome made improvements were the implementation of the V8 Sparkplug compiler and short builtin calls.

RELATED RESOURCE

Cloud operational excellence

Everything you need to know about optimising your cloud operations

FREE DOWNLOAD

“Sparkplug is a new mid-tier JavaScript compiler for V8 that generates efficient code with low compilation overhead,” said Christoff. “Short builtin calls are used by the V8 JavaScript engine to optimize the placement of generated code inside the device’s memory.”

These two contributed to a “substantial difference” specifically to Apple’s M1-based Macs and helped boost performance further by avoiding indirect jumps between function calls.

Overall, the latest Chrome build is running 43% faster than it did 17 months ago when Apple first released its devices with its own M1 chips.

Performance increases can also be found on Android, Google said, with page loading times down 15% thanks to prioritising critical navigation moments on the browser user interface thread.

The improvements build on previous work to reduce startup times using what Google calls “freeze-dried tabs” - using a lightweight version of a tab on load - and improving speed and memory usage using isolated splits which preloads the majority of the browser process codes on a background thread.

Google Chrome update fixes zero-day under active exploitation

Connor Jones — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 10:36:05 +0000

Google has released a fresh wave of patches for seven high-severity security issues affecting Google Chrome, including one zero-day vulnerability under active exploitation.

The latest stable build (98.0.4758.102) for Windows, Mac, and Linux brings with it a total of 11 security fixes, with many of the highest-severity flaws relating to use after free (UAF) vulnerabilities.

Google reveals five high-risk flaws in Chrome browser Google speeds up Chrome update cycle to four weeks What's behind the explosion in zero-day exploits?

The zero-day, tracked as CVE-2022-0609 and carrying a CVSSv3 score of 9.8/10, is a UAF in animation vulnerability which Google says is under active exploitation in the wild.

Discovered by Google's Threat Analysis Group researchers, Adam Weidemann and Clément Lecigne, very few details of the security flaw have been revealed but UAF vulnerabilities typically facilitate attacks such as arbitrary code execution and data corruption in unpatched software, and can lead to the takeover of a victim's machine.

UAF vulnerabilities relate to incorrect use of dynamic memory in software. Dynamic memory allocation is used by programmers to store large amounts of data within running software and blocks of data are reallocated repeatedly.

Programmes use headers to check which sections of dynamic memory are free and UAF vulnerabilities can be exploited when programmes don't manage these headers properly. These flaws allow an attacker to substitute code in place of cleared data in dynamic memory if a pointer isn't cleared after data is moved to a different block.

The majority of the high-severity vulnerabilities in the latest wave of patches relate to UAF in various components of Google Chrome. One exists in File Manager (CVE-2022-0603), another in the Webstore API (CVE-2022-0605), one in ANGLE (CVE-2022-0606), and finally one in GPU (CVE-2022-0607), as well as the zero-day.

Among the other most serious flaws available in the latest stable build is CVE-2022-0608, an integer overflow flaw in Mojo. Reported by Google Project Zero's Sergei Glazunov, integer overflow attacks occur when an arithmetic-based process within a programme returns a value greater than the range set by the target variable can hold.

RELATED RESOURCE

Software-defined storage for dummies

Control storage costs, enable hybrid cloud and simplify storage management

FREE DOWNLOAD

Such vulnerabilities can lead to data theft, data exfiltration, a complete takeover of a system, or simply prevent the application from running properly.

Google said the update will be rolling out automatically over the coming days and weeks for all operating systems, but concerned users can force an update immediately to the latest version by navigating to the Google Chrome menu in the top right corner of the browser, hovering over 'Help', and selecting the 'About Google Chrome' menu, or by typing 'chrome://settings/help' into the URL bar.

Google introduces free Workspace plan for businesses without Gmail

Bobby Hellard — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 10:18:48 +0000

Google has announced a new free tier of its Workspace platform that lets companies that have existing email systems use its collaboration apps.

The Google Workspace Essentials Starter edition will work similarly to a personal Google account, though having an official package is likely to make it easier to use and deploy within a team.

Google to shut down free G Suite accounts Google Workspace is now available for everyone Google Workspace adds Jira and AppSheet integrations

Users will be able to sign up for Essentials Starters using their existing email accounts - whether with Google, Microsoft or any other provider - and then invite colleagues to work on projects with Google Docs or Sheets and so on.

The package will come with 15GB of Google Drive storage for each member, and users will be able to communicate remotely with services such as Chat and Meet, despite Google not offering an email service within the tier.

This latest offer comes just a week after Google announced it was killing off free legacy G Suite accounts. However, the exclusion of Gmail from the new package is a completely different offer; until now, the only way to have a Workspace account with a non-Google email address was to sign up to the Business Starter tier, which costs £8.29 per month. That is still an available option, but with the 'Essentials Starter' users just need to sign up with their work email and no credit card information is needed.

Along with the storage limits, there also appears to be a user cap of 25 per team account, however, there is no stopping companies from getting around that by setting up multiple accounts.

"Essentials Starter helps employees and their teams break down silos and work together in new ways, even if their organisation still relies on legacy productivity tools that weren't built for the hybrid era of work," Kelly Waldher, Google Workspace VP of marketing wrote in a blog post.

"There's no need for a new email address, file conversions, new plug-ins, or desktop software. All of the tools in Essentials Starter will work quickly and easily within your existing environment. And because we designed Google Workspace to operate on our industry-leading cloud foundation, Essentials Starter provides encrypted and secure access to files, helping keep users safe and their information private."

Asus Chromebook CX9 (CX9400CE) review: The most stylish Chromebook on the market

Mike Jennings — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 11:39:42 +0000

By now, we’re well past the point of Chromebooks universally being cheap-and-cheerful budget laptops, but even with that in mind, the Asus Chromebook CX9 is one of the most expensive Google-powered portables you’ll find anywhere.

That’s thanks to its price of £1,084 exc VAT, which is more than twice the cost of most other Chrome OS laptops, and it means this laptop has to impress in every department to justify such a cost – especially when you can get Windows or Mac OS machines for that kind of money.

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Design

Happily, the Asus gets off to a superb start. The magnesium-alloy chassis has a matte black finish that looks brilliant – sleek and stylish, and just as good as any of the other luxury business notebooks on the market.

Google reportedly planning Chromebooks with custom CPUs by 2023 Chromebooks are the Benjamin Button of tech Parallels Desktop brings Windows 10 apps to Chromebooks

This laptop isn’t just about good looks, either. It adheres to MIL-STD-810H standards for shocks, drops, vibrations, changes in temperature and usage at different altitudes, and it feels reassuringly sturdy in the hand – there’s barely any movement in the base and display. It’s easily strong enough to survive a busy business life.

The CX9’s dimensions also impress. It’s 16mm thick, 322mm wide and weighs 1.15kg. Those are great figures for any notebook, no matter the OS: the latest MacBook Pro 13 is slimmer but heavier, and the CX9 is no thicker or heavier than cheaper, flimsier Chromebooks like the Asus CX1 and the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5.

If you want to compare the CX9 with Windows machines, it’s still a good outlook: the MSI Prestige 14 Evo and latest Dell XPS 13 have similar prices to the CX9, and both are heavier. In short, the Asus looks fantastic, it has the build quality to cope with a busy lifestyle, and it’s slim and light enough to easily match its rivals.

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Keyboard & Trackpad

It’s got a good keyboard, too. The chiclet buttons are snappy, and fast, and they’ve got plenty of travel alongside a consistent typing action. Too many small laptops have keyboards that feel soft or hollow, and that’s not the case here – the CX9’s excellent keyboard is ideal for hours of typing.

There’s a little more travel here than on the MacBook Pro and the latest Dell XPS. The ErgoLift hinge tilts the keyboard towards the user, which makes the typing position more comfortable, and there’s a fingerprint reader below the keyboard. The unit is spill-resistant, too.

There’s a wide trackpad below the keyboard, and it’s accurate and with crisp buttons. We’d prefer the buttons to feel a little lighter, but that’s a minor criticism.

The only other issue is the lack of numberpad. As with many Asus laptops, you can overlay a virtual numberpad over the trackpad, but this stop-gap solution doesn’t always register keypresses and is unsatisfying to use. If you do lots of work with figures or data, you’d be better-suited to a larger notebook with a proper numberpad.

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Display

The screen is another area that could do with more space. The CX9’s 14in panel has a 1080p resolution and IPS hardware underneath, but it’s not a touchscreen and it has a 16:9 aspect ratio. Dell and Apple’s flagship laptops both use alternative aspect ratios that provide extra vertical space, and we wish that Asus has gone down that route with the CX9.

That’s our only significant criticism when it comes to the display, though. The panel’s brightness peak of 366cd/m2 is just high enough to tackle indoor and outdoor use, and its black point of 0.22cd/m2 helps produce a contrast ratio of 1,663:1. That’s superb, and means that the CX9’s display serves up huge contrast, loads of vibrancy and impressive depth – everything has lashings of punch. The Delta E of 1.39 also means colours are accurate, and the panel rendered 96.6% of the sRGB gamut, so it’ll produce virtually every shade required by mainstream apps.

That’s a fantastic set of benchmarks, and better than virtually any other Chromebook. Whether you’re doing mainstream photo-editing, watching movies, or giving presentations, everything will look bold and accurate on this screen.

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Hardware & Performance

Our review sample deploys a quad-core Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor with base and boost speeds of 2.8GHz and 4.7GHz alongside Intel Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of DDR4 memory, and a 512GB SSD.

It’s good hardware, and the CX9 returned scores of 1,355 and 2,487 in Geekbench 5’s single- and multi-core benchmarks. The former score is what we’d expect from this chip, but the latter is at the bottom end of the range for this processor and suggests that the chip doesn’t run at its full potential.

You wouldn’t know that the CPU isn’t running at full pelt in real-world use, though. The Asus handled office apps and loads of browser tabs without complaint, and we were able to run browser tabs alongside Spotify, social media apps and email clients with no problems. The CX9 was never loud or hot, either.

This laptop can run anything you’ll realistically want to do on a Chromebook, including mainstream photo-editing. Bear in mind, though, that this chip will be faster in Windows laptops, and that Apple’s M1 processors are quicker still – and will soon be superseded by even better versions. If you want to run high-end content-creation and design tasks, Chrome OS still isn’t the best platform and the CX9 is not the best choice.

The SSD falls into a similar trap. Its read and write speeds of 511MB/sec and 335MB/sec are good enough to keep Chrome OS responsive and to ensure rapid boot times, but the NVMe drives used in Mac OS and Windows devices are far quicker.

The battery is another area where the Asus is only middling. The 50Wh battery lasted for 10hrs 47mins in our 170cd/m2 video rundown test. If you plan to run loads of browser tabs or tough apps, expect that figure to drop to around eight hours. That’s a mediocre result; you’ll probably get through a working day with this machine, but it’s no better than cheaper Chromebooks and a long way behind the best Windows devices. The Asus CX1 lasted for more than eleven hours, for instance, and the affordable HP Envy 13 delivered more than fourteen hours of longevity.

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Ports and Features

The CX9’s left-hand edge has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, which means you get 40Gbps data transfers and 45W of fast-charging power delivery – although one of those ports functions as the AC connector. The Asus also has a full-size HDMI and USB 3.2 Gen 2 sockets, a Kensington lock slot, an audio jack, and a microSD card reader. On the inside, the Asus has dual-band Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, and its 720p webcam has a physical privacy shutter.

It’s good connectivity, and it matches many Windows laptops – and goes beyond the Apple and Dell machines, which rely on Lightning and Thunderbolt connections while eschewing full-size ports.

The 720p webcam is fine for casual conference calls, but a sharper 1080p unit would have been better. There are no mobile broadband options here, and an upgrade to Wi-Fi 6E could have avoided congested connections in the future. The speakers are mediocre, too, thanks to an absence of bass and nuance. They’re tinny and only good enough for casual media duties.

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Verdict

The Asus CX9 is one of the priciest Chromebooks on the market, but it does a tremendous job of defending its price. It looks fantastic, it has impressive build quality, and it’s slim and light. It excels in several practical departments too: the keyboard is superb, it has good connectivity, and its display is bright, bold, and accurate.

It’s not perfect, however. The processor handles any Chrome OS task easily, but other laptops are quicker. Battery life is fine, but not great. If you want ultimate performance or lengthy battery life, look elsewhere.

For most people, though, the CX9 does the job with style. It might be expensive, but it’s one of the best Chrome OS laptops you can buy.

Asus Chromebook CX9 Specifications

Processor	1.2GHz-2.8GHz Intel Core i7-1165G7
RAM	16GB DDR4
Graphics	Intel Iris Xe
Storage	512GB SSD
Display	14in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS
Operating system	Google Chrome OS
Connectivity	Dual-band 802.11ax WiFi, Bluetooth 5.2
Ports	2 x USB-C/Thunderbolt 4, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1 x HDMI, 1 x microSD, 1 x audio
Dimensions	322 x 205 x 16mm (WxDxH)
Weight	1.15kg
Warranty	1yr RTB

Chromebook shipments plunge due to 'shift in demand'

Danny Bradbury — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 17:56:41 +0000

Chromebook and tablet shipments have fallen for the first time since the start of the pandemic, research company IDC said today.

Chromebook shipments fell 29.8% year-on-year in Q3 2021 to 6.5 million units, IDC reported in its “Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker,” while tablet shipments dropped 9.4% to 42.3 million units.

Asus Chromebook CX1 (CX1100CN) review: A cut-price compromise Google reportedly planning Chromebooks with custom CPUs by 2023 Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 Chromebook review: A dependable workhorse Chromebook demand "through the roof" with 287% growth

The main cause for the drop in shipments was a shift in demand. These product categories hit peak demand during the pandemic as people looked for cheap equipment to allow them to work from home. This created a sustained growth period during the pandemic, which analyst company Canalys described as "through the roof" in July. Tablet sales also soared during the pandemic.

Now that restrictions are decreasing in many regions and offices are opening, that demand is weakening.

Supply chain limitations also played a part, according to Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's mobility and consumer device trackers. "The combination of these two factors is likely to create opportunity for PC makers as shared components, production capacity, and freight availability could be shifted to other categories such as Windows notebooks or perhaps gaming PCs, which continue to see higher demand and greater profitability," he said.

The decline in shipments isn't uniform worldwide. It hit developed markets hardest, but emerging markets are still seeing strong growth. However, their 13% contribution to global shipments won't offset the slide.

RELATED RESOURCE

Explaining the UK’s supply chain crisis

Sample our exclusive Business Briefing content

FREE DOWNLOAD

HP saw the largest decline in the Chromebook business, losing two-thirds of its unit shipments and dropping from first place in sales in Q3 2020 to fourth place in Q3 2021.

Lenovo took the top spot this quarter, moving up from second place. All vendors lost shipment volumes aside from Samsung, which saw flat year-on-year shipment figures.

Tablet market rankings remain unchanged since last year. Apple retained the top slot in tablet sales, increasing its market share from 30% to 34.6% this quarter. Samsung, Amazon, Lenovo, and Huawei took second through fifth place respectively. Huawei took the biggest hit on shipments, losing 45.9% of its unit volume.

These figures come just days after IDC announced shipment declines in the smartphone market, largely fueled by supply chain issues.

Asus Chromebook CX1 (CX1100CN) review: A cut-price compromise

Mike Jennings — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 07:53:00 +0000

The Asus CX1 is an unusual device in that it's very cheap, even for a Chromebook. At just £191 (exc VAT) it is one of the most affordable laptops around, but also impressively diminutive with its 11.6in display.

Size and cost are more important now than ever before as more and more of us are working from home, or remotely, and prioritise portably. However, with a cost of living crisis and squeezing of the financial markets, price is also a heavy factor. So the Asus CX1 ticks the boxes for affordability and portability, but what about its competence?

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Design

The downside of this is the CX1 looks and feels like a budget device. Its plastic body mimics the sleek design of more expensive kit, but it’s hampered by huge black screen bezels. It’s not particularly elegant, and there are no surprising or high-end features aside from the 180-degree hinge.

Acer Chromebook Spin 713 review: A high-end package with a budget price Chromebooks are the Benjamin Button of tech HP Pro c640 Chromebook review: Nailing the basics

We’re not reassured when it comes to build quality either: the base rattles and its metal flexes easily. That’s not good, but the Asus does have MIL-STD-810G certification and is tested for shocks, vibrations, and pressure changes. It’s also certified for keyboard, hinge and port durability. Ultimately though, that doesn’t assuage our build quality fears – a protective sleeve would be a good idea when you take the CX1 on the road.

Still, that’s no surprise on a laptop that costs under £200, and you’ll have to spend more to address those build quality issues. The Acer Chromebook 714 and Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 are both more robust, for example, but they’re also over £400.

At least the 11.6in display means that the CX1 has a tiny footprint. This machine is 287mm wide and 200mm deep, and its 17.5mm-thick body weighs only 1.2kg - weighty compared to more expensive notebooks like the Acer Swift 5, but fairly svelte compared to most entry-level laptops. It’ll take up hardly any space in your bag.

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Keyboard and trackpad

That small footprint means the keyboard utterly dominates this tiny machine. The chiclet unit offers a decent 1.5mm of travel and it’s spill-resistant, but the CX1’s size and price means you don’t get a numberpad or a backlight. The buttons are fast and light, so they’re fine for casual typing, but they feel hollow and rattly, so they’re not particularly satisfying to use. The flexible base makes the keyboard feel irritatingly bouncy, too.

Meanwhile, little impresses about the trackpad. Its surface has too much friction, and the buttons are soft, lacking the satisfying, shallow click of better examples.

The CX1’s keyboard and trackpad are fine for casual use, but if you do loads of typing then the Acer and Lenovo laptops are worth the extra outlay thanks to their snappier and more robust keyboards.

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Display

The unimpressive typing gear sits beneath an underwhelming display. This 11.6in panel has a modest resolution of 1,366 x 768, which is archaic in a world dominated by 1080p laptops, and it proves restrictive. You won’t be able to view two documents or tabs side-by-side, and you’ve got less on-screen space for individual windows.

Almost every other laptop on the market uses a 1080p screen, and that higher resolution adds versatility. You’ll only get a 1080p screen on the CX1 if you buy its 14in, 15.6in or 17.3in variants.

Even more disappointingly, the CX1 doesn’t make up for the low resolution with good quality. The brightness level of 239cd/m2 is only suitable for indoor use, and its black point of 0.63cd/m2 is high, so black areas end up looking grey. The resulting contrast ratio of 379:1 is poor, and it means there’s no real depth or vibrancy.

The Delta E of 4.47 is similarly mediocre, and the cool colour temperature of 7,547K means the display has little warmth. The panel also only rendered 56% of the sRGB gamut, which is a borderline unacceptable level of inaccuracy

The results are plain to see: the CX1’s screens looks pallid, with little nuance or punch. Viewing angles aren’t good, either, so you’ve got to be in the right position to get the best results from this display. It’s rare to see a display this bad, and even budget laptops like the Acer and Lenovo manage to surpass it in brightness, contrast, and colour accuracy. It’s only good enough for basic tasks, and even then, web pages and media look underwhelming.

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Hardware and performance

The processor only copes with entry-level computing, too. The CX1 relies on a Celeron N3350, which is a dual-core chip with base and boost speeds of 1.1GHz and 2.4GHz. Intel released this part way back in 2016, and it uses an old architecture and an aging Intel HD Graphics 500 GPU. That’s paired with either 4GB or 8GB of LPDDR4 memory, and it’s sold with 32GB and 64GB SSDs. We’ve tested the 4GB/64GB model.

We weren’t expecting much from this hardware, but amazingly, we were still disappointed by its performance. In Geekbench 5 the CX1 delivered single- and multi-core results of 269 and 516. These are terrible scores – three and five times slower than the Acer and Lenovo laptops respectively.

That’s no surprise when the CX1 uses such an old processor, and it has real-world implications. Positively, this laptop can handle Office apps, websites, social media, and emails, but that’s it – and, even then, switching tabs and opening menus was sluggish. If you open loads of tabs then the CX1 starts to struggle, and it couldn’t handle Spotify simultaneously – music skipped when we switched between tabs and apps. The Acer and Lenovo are both far better in these workloads.

The CX1 certainly hasn’t got the power to tackle creative apps and it won’t run Linux apps through a VM. You’ll have to spend far more to get that sort of versatility. We would recommend buying the 8GB version of this product though, as that extra RAM will go a long way to improving everyday performance.

The Acer proved more impressive in our battery test – it lasted for 11hrs 13mins. That’s not far behind the Acer and a little better than the Lenovo, and you’ll get a full day of use from this device.

There’s something else to consider, too – updates. Google usually supports Intel-based Chromebooks for eight years, but each machine’s internal hardware determines its support period. The CX1’s older CPU means it’ll be supported until June 2024, so you’ve got less useful time with this laptop. The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 and Acer Chromebook 714, by contrast, are covered until 2025 and 2027 respectively. That’s an acceptable compromise on a cheap notebook, but it’s worth remembering if you need a lengthy support period on your new product.

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Ports and features

The CX1’s entry-level internals are paired with modest features. You’ve got a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port on the right-hand side, and on the left, there’s another USB-C port alongside a microSD card reader and a full-size USB port. One of those USB-C ports charges the notebook.

On the inside, there’s dual-band 802.11ac wireless and Bluetooth 4.2. That’s fine for everyday computing, but it’s a step behind the Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 hardware found inside most laptops, including the Lenovo. The rival Acer has similar connectivity but adds a fingerprint reader, while the convertible Lenovo has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.

Google’s Titan C chip handles security, and the CX1 has a 720p webcam without facial recognition or a privacy shutter. There’s no HDMI output, no fingerprint reader, and no Kensington Lock slot. There are speakers, but they’re tinny and barely suitable for video calls and basic media. It’s an adequate showing overall, but there’s nothing here that’s going to make anyone sit up and take notice.

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Verdict

The CX1’s threadbare feature set, sluggish performance and disappointing display are no surprise when you consider the £191 exc VAT price. And, for that money, Asus has delivered a machine that’ll run basic computing tasks inside a tiny, portable chassis.

The price is the CX1’s best attribute, though, and it’s undermined by its poor performance in most other key departments. It’s worth consideration if you need a bargain, but saving up some more cash will ensure you get a far better Chrome OS experience.

Asus Chromebook CX1 Specifications

Processor	1.1GHz Intel Celeron N3350
RAM	4GB/8GB LPDDR4
Graphics	Intel HD Graphics 500
Storage	32GB/64GB SSD
Display	11.6in 1,366 x 768 TN
Operating system	Chrome OS
Connectivity	Dual-band 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2
Ports	2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x microSD, 1 x audio
Dimensions	287 x 200 x 17.5mm (WxDxH)
Weight	1.2kg
Warranty	1yr RTB

Google claims it is the most searched for term on Bing

Bobby Hellard — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 10:32:57 +0000

Google has claimed that 'Google' is the most searched for term on rival engine Microsoft Bing, according to court testimony.

The tech giant argued before the European Union's General Court that it is simply the most popular platform on the market, in a bid to dismiss a €4.3 billion fine for anti-competitive practices.

DuckDuckGo slams Google's search engine auction as "fundamentally flawed" Google fined €150m for anti-competitive behaviour Android search engine auction goes 'against spirit of EU ruling', rivals claim

The company is alleged to have used the success of Android in the smartphone market to push Google as the default search engine for users. The argument was that Google offered consumers little choice for search engines by pre-installing its own services.

However, Google has denied the claim, arguing instead that Google's popularity means it is out performing rivals.

"We have submitted evidence showing that the most common search query on Bing is, by far, 'Google'," Alfonso Lamadrid, the lawyer representing Google, told the EU General Court. "People use Google because they choose to, not because they are forced to.

"Google's market share in general search is consistent with consumer surveys showing that 95% of users prefer Google to rival search engines."

For the initial case, Margrethe Vestager, then the EU's Competition Commissioner, said that Google had made forced Android manufacturers to pre-instal its search app Chrome and even paid some to make it the only pre-installed app, which led to only 1% of people downloading a different search app.

In response to the EU's decision, Google has implemented a bidding system on Android where consumers get four options for search (one of them is always Google) when they set a new device up. Companies that want their search engines included have to bid against one another to secure a place on the list with it changing every three months.

However, DuckDuckGo, has labelled this practice "fundamentally flawed" and has urged the European Commission to take action against Google.

"This EU antitrust remedy is only serving to further strengthen Google's dominance in mobile search by boxing out alternative search engines that consumers want to use and, for those search engines that remain, taking most of their profits from the preference menu," DuckDuckGo wrote in a blog post.

Google reveals five high-risk flaws in Chrome browser

Justin Cupler — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 14:41:01 +0000

Google recently released Chrome 93. Along with its unveiling came the announcement that the latest update fixed a series of serious flaws.

According to Google’s blog post announcing Chrome 93, the latest version of the web browser fixed 27 security flaws, and five of those flaws carried a “high” risk ranking. As usual, Google kept the details minimal to avoid alerting hackers of what the flaws entailed, but the five biggest ones were use after free (UAF) vulnerabilities.

Weekly threat roundup: Zero-days in Windows, Adobe, Google Chrome Google Chrome makes it easier to fix weak passwords Google Chrome is losing market share to Microsoft Edge Google Chrome team to use racially neutral code

The five high-risk use after free flaws were CVE-2021-30606: use after free in Blink; CVE-2021-30607: Use after free in Permissions; CVE-2021-30608: Use after free in Web Share; CVE-2021-30609: Use after free in Sign-In; and CVE-2021-30610: Use after free in Extensions API.

UAF flaws indicate incorrect dynamic memory use during program operation. If the program fails to clear the memory pointer after it’s free, a threat actor can exploit the program. It’s unclear what cyber attacks a hacker could pull off in these cases, but the high-risk rating likely means there were potential serious consequences.

Chrome has had its share of security issues lately, including four high-risk UAF flaws in August and eight zero-day exploits in 2021 alone.

RELATED RESOURCE

Challenging the rules of security

Protecting data and simplifying IT management with Chrome OS

FREE DOWNLOAD

How do you know if your Chrome version is affected by these flaws? Open Chrome and head to Settings > Help > About Google Chrome. If your browser indicates you have Chrome version 93.0.4577.63 or above, you’re in good shape. If you have an older version, Chrome will immediately recommend you update and restart your browser.

Despite flaws, Chrome remains the market leader in web browsers, with well over 2 billion users. And there’s no sign it’ll slow down anytime soon. Plus, flaws and all, Chrome still remains high on the most secure web browsers list.

Google launches Meet Progressive Web App

Praharsha Anand — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 20:01:07 +0000

Earlier this year, Google revealed it was testing pre-installed Meet and Chat web apps on Chrome OS and planned to release them to the public. Delivering on that promise, Google announced Meet is now a progressive web app (PWA).

PWAs are responsive websites that look and feel like native mobile apps.

Google Meet updates aim to combat meeting fatigue Google Meet will help troubleshoot a low-quality video conference Google Meet attendance reports are now available to more Workspace customers Google Meet is now available on Android and iOS devices

Google further stated the PWA version of Meet has the same features as its app counterpart, except it is easier to use and far more accessible. The Meet icon will now appear on users’ shelves and launchers, providing easy access to video chat. As with other PWAs, Google Meet will update automatically during Chrome updates.

“We’ve launched a new Google Meet standalone web app. This Progressive Web Application (PWA) has all the same features as Google Meet on the web, but as a standalone app it’s easier to find and use, and it streamlines your workflow by eliminating the need to switch between tabs,” explained Google.

Users can find the PWA installation prompt on the top-right corner of Chrome's address or URL bar. Once downloaded, Meet will load into a standalone window. Users can run Google Meets PWA on Windows, macOS, Chrome OS 73 and up, and Linux.

RELATED RESOURCE

How to maximise the value of your data and apps with IaaS

Free yourself from infrastructure complexity

FREE DOWNLOAD

The Google Meets service is available to anyone with a Google account, including G Suite Basic and Business customers. Administrators can manage PWA access or automatically install progressive web apps for users.

Among the Meet software updates are cross-domain live streaming, live stream captions, and hand raise updates for desktops and laptops.

Google has confirmed the Google Meets PWA will arrive starting today, but some features could take up to 15 business days to appear.

Asus Chromebox 4 review: Capable, versatile, but not fast

Mike Jennings — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 07:22:32 +0000

These days, it’s not necessarily accurate to think of Chrome OS as a weak option compared to Windows; Google’s operating system has matured into a genuine contender for office work. In some of its guises, the Chromebox is extremely affordable, too, undercutting Windows and macOS machines.

The Asus Chromebox 4, for example, is a lightweight contender from a heavyweight company. The Core i3-based machine reviewed here costs £416 exc VAT, so it’s affordable enough to tempt people away from Windows and towards Chrome. And, if you need more juice, there’s a Core i5 model that costs £457 exc VAT.

Asus Chromebox 4 review: Design

The Chromebox is impressive in practical departments, as well as price. It only weighs 648g, for example, and its square body is just 149mm wide and 40mm deep. That means it’ll fit into the tiniest of spaces. The robust build quality means you can even sling it into a bag and carry it around without issue – perfect for hot-desking or jumping between home and office.

Asus Chromebox 3 review: Miniature PC, maximum productivity Chrome OS gets enterprise overhaul in 10th anniversary update Acer Chromebook Spin 713 review: A high-end package with a budget price

The Chromebox also supports VESA mounting and includes a mount, so it’s easy to attach to the back of a monitor. And, cleverly, once the Chromebox is installed using VESA, the power button faces upwards, so it’s still easy to use. The system has four rubber feet, with screws beneath - remove those, and the base panel lifts free. Once that’s removed, it’s easy to access the SSD and memory slots for quick upgrading.

The tiny Asus is still a little bigger than other small form-factor systems. The Intel NUC 11 Pro is smaller, slimmer, and lighter. Asus’s own Mini PC PN50, meanwhile, is a barebones machine that’s narrower than the Chromebox and only slightly taller.

The NUC’s £545 exc VAT price isn’t far away from the Chromebox, and the PN50 is a barebones system that only costs £324 exc VAT. You’ll probably have to add components to that cost, but it’s great value if you’ve got parts hanging around. And if you’re at the top end of the Chromebox’s price range, the latest Apple Mac mini costs £583 exc VAT and has a sturdier, better-looking design and a superb M1 processor.

There’s one area where money hasn’t been spent, though: the aesthetics. The Chromebox is made from cheap-feeling plastic and has a bland gunmetal finish that doesn’t draw the eye.

Asus Chromebox 4 review: Hardware & performance

The Chromebox we’ve reviewed uses an Intel Core i3-10110U processor, which has two multi-threaded cores alongside base and boost speeds of 2.1GHz and 4.1GHz. In this rig it’s paired with 8GB of dual-channel memory and a 128GB SSD, and graphical power comes from an unimpressive Intel UHD 620 chip.

The Core i3 chip inside our sample isn’t particularly spectacular, but it does have the power to handle everyday computing. We loaded browser tabs with Google Docs files, email clients, social media tools, and conventional web pages and the Chromebox handled them simultaneously without slowdown. That makes the Asus a solid option for daily office tasks. The Chromebox is never loud, either: there is a fan inside this machine, but it’s quiet during all tasks, and virtually silent in many situations.

It’s a solid start, but a wider look highlights the Chromebox’s mid-range performance. In Geekbench’s single- and multi-core tests the Core i3 chip inside the Chromebox returned middling scores of 1,002 and 2,155. The Intel NUC used an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor with four cores, and it scored 1,391 and 4,869 in Geekbench, and the AMD chip inside the Asus PN50 performed similarly. If you want to tackle photo-editing or other more demanding tasks then those rigs are better options, and the Core i5 version also makes sense if you want to run Chrome OS’s Linux VM options.

There are alternative Chromebox specifications available, too. The entry-level model includes an Intel Celeron 5205U alongside 4GB of memory and a 32GB SSD for £245 exc VAT, and there’s a Core i5-10210U version with 8GB of memory that costs £457 exc VAT. The most expensive Chromebox deploys a Core i7-10510U processor, with prices starting at a lofty £541 exc VAT. The two middle options offer a solid balance of price and performance, but the Celeron is too weedy and Core i7 too expensive to recommend either.

RELATED RESOURCE

Waste not, want not: What to do with unneeded office equipment

Sample our exclusive Business Briefing content

FREE DOWNLOAD

Underneath all of this is Chrome OS. It’s matured into a smart and effective operating system, and it’s especially useful if you do most of your work in browser-based tools. It’s possible to run Linux software on the Chromebox, too, and this rig handles mainstream Linux tools smoothly. However, while Chrome OS can also run Android apps, tougher apps like photo-editing tools and Office software were slow and games were sluggish too.

Asus Chromebox 4 review: Ports & features

The Asus is well-equipped with ports. On its front you’ll find a microSD card reader and an audio jack alongside two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports. The rear has three faster USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports and a Type-C connector that supports DisplayPort and 15W of power delivery, as well as two HDMI ports. For networking, there’s dual-band Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and Gigabit Ethernet.

This connectivity can easily handle everyday computing, although other machines do offer more. The Intel NUC has 2.5Gb/sec Ethernet, TPM and two Thunderbolt 4 ports, for instance, while the Asus PN50 adds an infrared sensor and pair of microphones.

The only other notable omission can be found by looking in the box: Asus hasn’t included a keyboard or mouse with this PC. While that’s not mandatory, it’s not unusual to find basic peripherals bundled with mainstream systems, and they would have been welcome here.

Asus Chromebox 4 review: Verdict

The Asus Chromebox 4 is a decent bit of everyday kit. It’s small, well-made and has good connectivity, and Chrome OS remains a solid alternative for mainstream tasks. The Core i3 processor has the grunt to handle everyday workloads without complaint. Elsewhere, the Core i5 option is viable, but the Celeron and Core i7 versions are worth avoiding.

The Core i3-based Chromebox is the best value, though, with solid performance inside a versatile, compact case. If you’re happy with Chrome OS, the Chromebox 4 is a compact and effective mainstream choice.

Asus Chromebox 4 Specifications

Processor	2.1GHz Intel Core i3-10110U
RAM	8GB DDR4
Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics 620
Storage	128GB SSD
Operating system	Chrome OS
Connectivity	Dual-band 802.11ax WiFi, Bluetooth 5.2, Gigabit Ethernet
Ports	3 x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C/DisplayPort/power, 2 x HDMI, 1 x audio, 1 x microSD
Dimensions	149 x 149 x 40mm (WxDxH)
Weight	648g
Warranty	1yr RTB

Google replaces Backup and Sync with Drive for Desktop

Bobby Hellard — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 09:45:15 +0000

Google has announced plans to move users from its Backup and Sync file-syncing services to a new unified desktop app for Drive.

Cloud storage: How secure are Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud and OneDrive? How secure is Google Drive? How to get more out of Google Drive

Onboarding for the Drive for Desktop app will start on 19 July, with Google recommending users make the switch by the end of September before they're locked out on 1 October.

The transition is just for Backup and Sync users, however, as business clients who are already using Drive File Stream - the enterprise name for Drive for Desktops - should already be set up.

The aim of moving to a unified desktop app is to create "a powerful and unified sync client", according to Google, with the best features from both consumer and enterprise services that should be more straightforward to use and easier for IT teams to manage.

In a blog post, Google suggests the new app will be pretty familiar to anyone who used its previous file-syncing services. Drive for Desktop will offer easy access to files and photos stored in the cloud, and will sync files in the background to keep them up to date.

Google also suggests the app can sync external storage devices like flash drives to Drive, mirror files between Drive and local files on a desktop computer, and let users choose whether they store individual photos and videos in Drive or Google Photos.

RELATED RESOURCE

The care and feeding of cloud

How to support cloud infrastructure post-migration

FREE DOWNLOAD

The launch of Drive for Desktop coincided with a few announcements from the tech giant, which included changes to services that helped many through the pandemic. In April 2020, for example, Google Meet was made available to all users with day-long group calls, but that has been switched to an hour as of 1 July. As such, free Gmail users will now have to make do with calls with three or more participants at a limit of 60 minutes.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 Chromebook review: A dependable workhorse

Stuart Andrews — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 11:04:24 +0000

In the ranks of convertible Chromebooks, the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 has among the least elegant name and the least elegant design. At 17mm thick and 1.35kg in weight, it’s actually slimmer and lighter than the Acer Chromebook Spin 713, but there’s something about the balance and 16:9 aspect ratio that makes it less satisfying to use in tablet form. Meanwhile, the Asus Chromebook Flip C436FA feels substantially lighter and goes even further than the Acer in its tablet-like appeal, and has a larger 14in screen to boot.

However, the Lenovo has some real points in its favour. It’s cheaper than both its rivals while matching the Asus on screen quality and beating both on performance, and we would argue that it’s the best of the three for overall usability if you’re planning to use your Chromebook primarily in laptop form.

The physical design might be more businesslike, but it’s still very functional, with the 13.3in screen folding back on Lenovo’s ingenious hinge to work in either tent or tablet modes. Only the lid is metal, with the body made of plastic, but Lenovo has done a great job of matching the colours and making it all feel like one unit. The bezels around the screen are narrow, bar the chunky one below the display, and the dark grey keys complete the styling – it looks more expensive than it is.

Chromebook demand "through the roof" with 287% growth Windows would be better running Chrome OS Chromebooks are the Benjamin Button of tech

The Flex 5 may not be as svelte as the Asus, but it makes up for it with connectivity, fitting in a USB-A 3.1 port as well as the USB-C 3.1 ports you’ll find on either side. Lenovo has also placed a volume rocker and an on/off button on the right-hand side, which definitely helps when you’re watching films in tablet mode and want to quickly turn the volume up or down. It’s also one of the cheaper Chromebooks we’ve seen with Wi-Fi 6 (in a 2x2 MIMO configuration), not to mention Bluetooth 5.

The screen is another sure sign of a Chromebook that punches well above its price tag, with a 300cd/m2 maximum brightness, 99.1% sRGB coverage and a low Delta E of 1.96. Its gloss coating isn’t as reflective as the Acer’s, and with a Full HD resolution it’s impressively crisp and clear. The same can’t be said about the audio, though, which suffers from little bass, a harsh treble and a boxy, congested mid-range, so you might want to connect some headphones if you’re planning to either watch movies or play Stadia games.

Lenovo laptops – including its Chromebooks – tend to have good keyboards, and while the Flex 5 doesn’t have a ThinkPad-level effort due to a lighter feel, its 1.4mm travel and positive action mean that it’s still a treat to type on. The touchpad is nothing special in terms of size or materials, but it works pretty much flawlessly when recognising swipes and taps, multi-finger gestures or left and right clicks.

RELATED RESOURCE

The total economic impact of Nutanix for end user computing

Cost savings and business benefits enabled by Nutanix HCI for end user computing

FREE DOWNLOAD

There’s nothing second-rate about the IdeaPad Flex 5’s performance, either. Equipped with a Core i5-10210U processor and 8GB of DDR4 RAM, it matched substantially more expensive Chromebooks in our benchmarks with scores of 958 and 3,458 for Geekbench 5’s single-and multi-core tests. That’s within touching distance of the HP Pro C640 and Dell’s Latitude Chromebook 7410 for single-core tasks, and ahead of both for multi-core operations. With a 128GB M.2 SSD rather than the usual eMMC flash storage, it’s also well equipped to handle Android apps and Linux applications at decent speeds.

What’s more, you won’t find yourself reaching for the charger too often because the IdeaPad Flex 5 doesn’t fall down when it comes to stamina. We didn’t quite make 12 hours before it ran out of power, but 11hrs 9mins should see you through the working day.

Overall, that’s what we like about the IdeaPad Flex 5 Chromebook. It’s neither the fastest nor the flashiest machine, but everything is designed and specified to give you a great, hard-working Chromebook at a very affordable price. So, if you’re looking for a workhorse that can handle a little entertainment on the side, you won’t find anything better for the money.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 Chromebook specifications

Processor	Intel Core i5-10210U 4.2GHz
RAM	8GB LPDDR4
Graphics adapter	Intel UHD Graphics
Storage	128GB PCIe NVMe SSD
Screen size (in)	13.3in
Screen resolution	1,920 x 1,080
Screen type	IPS
Touchscreen	Yes
Memory card slot	MicroSD slot
3.5mm audio jack	Yes
Graphics outputs	2 x USB-C 3
Other ports	USB-A 3
Web Cam	720p webcam
Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi 6
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5
NFC	N/A
Dimensions, mm (WDH)	310 x 214 x 17mm
Weight (kg) - with keyboard where applicable	1.11kg
Battery size (Wh)	51Wh
Operating system	ChromeOS

Acer Chromebook Spin 713 review: A high-end package with a budget price

Stuart Andrews — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 09:35:14 +0000

If you’re one of those Chromebook devotees lamenting the demise of the classic Google Pixelbook, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 feels like a natural successor. Miss the squarer 3:2 aspect ratio, QHD screen and the all-metal, thin-and-light design? The Pixelbook’s convertible form factor? The Spin 713 has you covered, only without the sky-high price tags of Google’s own-brand Chromebooks and with a spec that’s bang up to date.

Our test model came with a tenth-generation Intel Core i3-10110U processor with two cores and four threads that boost up to 4.1GHz, and while it wasn’t right at the top of the table in our performance benchmarks, it wasn’t far off. Geekbench 5 scores of 1,008 and 2,184 for single- and multi-core operations put it ahead of the Pixelbook Go and its scores of 761 and 1,373.

With 8GB of RAM, you’ll need a lot of Chrome tabs open or several demanding applications running before you see any hint of slowdown – or even hear the Spin’s cooling fans go to work. If you do need more power, there are Core i5-10210U and Core i7-10510U variants available for £200 or £300 more. For most people, however, the Core i3 will be perfectly adequate.

Chromebook demand "through the roof" with 287% growth Acer Chromebook 714 review: Unfussy, affordable and effective Chrome OS gets enterprise overhaul in 10th anniversary update

The form factor remains as good-looking and versatile as previous versions, with a military-grade metal chassis in a gunmetal tone that’s under 17mm thick and just 1.45kg in weight. You can use it in the standard clamshell configuration or fold the screen flat against the base for a tablet-style experience, or even pose it in a tent configuration for watching video or playing games. It’s very usable across all modes, partly because the 3:2 aspect ratio works for tablet use, where a 16:9 format can feel cramped, and gives you the illusion of a bigger screen in laptop mode thanks to the extra height. Switching between the 13.5in Acer and a 15.6in laptop, the Acer never feels small.

The IPS screen is fantastic, with an unusual 2,256 x 1,504 resolution that works brilliantly with Chrome OS’s desktop scaling. It’s bright, at nearly 400cd/m2, and covers 99.8% of the sRGB colour space, not to mention 86% of DCI-P3. We measured the average Delta E at 2.29, so while colour accuracy isn’t quite perfect, it’s close enough for anyone bar professional designers.

Whether you’re streaming video or playing Stadia games, image quality is brilliant, and the only downside is its spectacularly reflective surface, which ups vibrancy and contrast at the expense of being able to see anything with any kind of bright light behind you. Audio quality isn’t to be sniffed at, either: it’s very clear, with some warmth and bass, and can go quite loud without getting shrill or distorted.

As for usability, the Spin 713 makes the most of the available space with a good-sized backlit keyboard with large, flat keys and an equally sizable touchpad that has a 3:2 aspect ratio to match the screen. The keyboard isn’t the best here – while there’s enough travel, the action could be crisper – but it’s not far off the pace, and the touchpad is near impossible to fault, tracking fast movements and gestures perfectly. If this was your main work machine, you would be perfectly happy, and a battery life of 12 hours or more means you won’t run out of power before the day is done.

If you want to use the Spin 713 within a desktop setup, you’ve got all the connectivity you need. It’s one of the few modern Chromebooks that still feature an HDMI output, although you could use DisplayPort over a USB-C adaptor or hub if you prefer, while there’s a single USB-A 3 port and two USB-C 3.1 ports. Acer gets extra credit on the wireless front too, with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.

Perhaps the most important thing about the Spin 713 is that it looks, feels and performs like a high-end Chromebook, while remaining thoroughly affordable. Granted, it’s not quite as speedy as the Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 or HP Pro C640, but it’s substantially cheaper while delivering a similar experience – or a better one in some respects. It’s an excellent Chromebook and incredible value.

Acer Chromebook Spin 713 specifications

Processor	Dual-core Intel Core i3-10110U
RAM	8GB LPDDR4
Graphics adapter	Intel UHD Graphics
Storage	128GB eMMC
Screen size (in)	13.5in
Screen resolution	2,256 x 1,504
Screen type	IPS
Touchscreen	Yes
Memory card slot	MicroSD
Graphics outputs	2 x USB-C 3, HDMI
Other ports	USB-A
Web Cam	720p
Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi 6
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5
NFC	N/A
Dimensions, mm (WDH)	300 x 235 x 16.8mm
Weight (kg) - with keyboard where applicable	1.2kg
Operating system	Chrome OS

Google I/O 2021: Android 12, 3D video calls, Workspace updates and more

Bobby Hellard — Wed, 19 May 2021 11:22:36 +0000

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a slew of new updates and features on Tuesday as the tech giant made a return to in-person events with its I/O conference held at the Mountain View Campus.

The announcements included a complete design overhaul of Android, more collaboration features for Workspace and a prototype for a 3D video conferencing booth.

Google Cloud and SpaceX partner on Starlink internet service Google’s about to push everyone into two-factor authentication Google and Microsoft profits surge as cloud demand continues

"The last year has put a lot into perspective," Pichai said. "At Google, it's also given renewed purpose to our mission to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. We continue to approach that mission with a singular goal: building a more helpful Google, for everyone. That means being helpful to people in the moments that matter and giving everyone the tools to increase their knowledge, success, health and happiness."

Android 12

Android 12 boasts the biggest design overhaul in the operating system's history, according to Google. Compared with Android 11, it does indeed look drastically different with new layouts and colour schemes, many of which will be automatically changed to match the user. For example, the OS will highlight colours that are best associated with the user's wallpaper to create a personalised theme.

Google suggests it will 'feel' different too, with more responsive touch functions and smoother motion and animation thanks to a wholesale change to the underlying system. Further under-the-hood improvements also include a reduction of CPU usage that saves core system services by up to 22%.

As expected, there are more privacy controls in Android 12 that focus on data sharing with apps. This includes a new Privacy Dashboard where users can set data sharing permissions and a new indicator that lets users know when apps are accessing the microphone or camera.

Workspace

Workspace, formally known as G Suite, also got some new features, chiefly the addition of 'Smart Canvas'. This is an established product that Google is integrating into Workspace to boost collaboration in the cloud.

Users have already been able to use it with '@-mentions' within a document that sees a smart chip offer up additional info, such as a person's name, location, job title and contact details. From now, however, the smart chip will also be available in Google Docs for recommending files and meetings. The collaboration functions will also include emoji reactions which will be added in the next few months.

Docs will also be available in a new 'pageless' format, where boundaries can be removed to create a surface that expands to fill whichever device or display is in use. This should make it easier for those working with wide tables, large images or when giving detailed feedback in comments.

There will also be more interoperability with a function to view and share Docs, Sheets and Slides directly from Meet, and content from Docs can be collaborated on from Google Chat.

RELATED RESOURCE

Transforming business operations with AI, IoT data, and edge computing

A Pathfinder report on the ROI of AI, IoT, and edge computing

FREE DOWNLOAD

LaMDA

Pichai also revealed the company's latest research within natural language processing with a new language model for dialogue applications called LaMDA. It has an open domain, which Pichai said means it can converse on any topic, such as the planet Pluto, for example. This was showcased with pre-recorded examples, but the model should be able to give sensible responses to make learning more fun and engaging.

Google said that LaMDA was a huge step forward in natural conversation, but it's currently only trained on text. When people communicate with each other they do it across images, text, audio and video, so the plan is to improve LaMDA by building multimodal models that allow people to naturally ask questions across different types of information.

3D video chat booth

Google is also looking at ways to improve video conferencing with a 3D video chat booth called 'Project Starline'. This is only available within some of Google's offices at the moment as it is built with custom hardware and specialised equipment. It uses computer vision, machine learning, spatial audio and compression technology to transmit a live call in a way that feels more personal.

"We believe this is where person-to-person communication technology can and should go, and in time, our goal is to make this technology more affordable and accessible, including bringing some of these technological advancements into our suite of communication products," Pichai said in a blog post.

Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 review: A security-conscious Chromebook with no staying power

Bobby Hellard — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 10:06:49 +0000

The humble Chromebook came of age during the pandemic with sales reportedly "through the roof" in the final quarter of 2020. The increase in demand was put down to the global surge in remote working, with many people and businesses opting for a budget-friendly Chromebook over traditional Windows laptops.

Acer Chromebook 714 review: Unfussy, affordable and effective Best business laptops 2023: Top business notebooks from Acer, Asus, Dell, Apple and more Windows would be better running Chrome OS

However, not all Chromebooks are cheap. Take Dell's Latitude 7410, a machine aimed at businesses with some specs you wouldn't usually associate with a Chromebook. It comes in a few variations, such as a 2-in-1, and there's even an option for a 4K screen, but our review unit is the standard 'enterprise' model, which still costs £919 exc VAT.

Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 review: Design

Now, no matter how much a Chromebook does cost, there's rarely much expectation of a showstopping design. They tend to be bulky grey things, but the Dell Latitude is something of a beaut. Its carbon fibre and aluminium body has a cool sandblasted finish, its edges are neatly rounded and the whole thing feels like a luxury. The reflective Dell logo on the lid also captures colour like nothing we've seen before.

The neatness continues with a chiclet-style keyboard, central trackpad and a screen with 0.5mm side bezels. The bottom bezel is twice that size but it complements the ChromeOS layout, almost incorporating the Google icons along the bottom of the display as if there were no bezel at all. The only part of the build that isn't pretty are the two robust looking hinges, but thankfully they're not enough to ruin the overall aesthetic.

Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 review: Display

Opening the lid on the Latitude reveals a rather splendid 14in screen with a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. As mentioned, there is an option to have a 4K display, which costs a little extra, but the standard model is still very impressive. In our calibrator tests, the Latitude scored 97.7% for sRGB gamut coverage and 105.8% gamut volume. That puts it in the same league as Google's Pixelbook Go and the Asus Chromebook Flip.

Its brightness peaked at 422cd/m2, which is by no means a terrible score, but there is an annoying glare that comes off the screen in sunny conditions. It has a matte finish, so it's all the more troubling that nearby lights can show up so easily. That was the only real issue we found with the display in day to day use, however. It's very crisp and bold, particularly for a Chromebook. You'll notice this on video calls (provided your internet connection is good enough) where the quality is wonderfully sharp.

Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 review: Keyboard and trackpad

The Latitude has a chiclet-style backlit keyboard and the top of the keys are ever so slightly concave, designed to fit your fingers that much better. They have a nice punchy feel to them, with your digits dropping into each with a satisfying push - but not so much that it becomes an effort.

Unfortunately, the trackpad is merely OK; It feels too sensitive and difficult to control at times, and the cursor can go flying off the screen very easily. This is a little problematic with Chrome OS, where apps work more as they do on mobile phones. For example, the Android version of Slack doesn't have a scroll bar. Instead, you use your cursor in the same way you would use a finger on a mobile phone, dragging the screen up and down to navigate through conversations. It's not very efficient and frankly a little tiring.

Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 review: Specs and Performance

The troublesome trackpad is a real shame because the Latitude's performance is actually really good. It packs a 10th Gen Core i5-10310U Intel processor with 16GB of RAM. Although this is one of Intel's mid-range chipsets, it's arguably more advanced than one would expect to find in a Chromebook and perhaps another reason for the high price tag. On the other hand, the Latitude is aimed at enterprise businesses and the new world of hybrid work, so a meaty specification is a bit more justified.

What's more, the Latitude delivers with strong scores in GeekBench 5. It notched 1,035 for single-threaded power and 3,114 for multi-core workloads, which is just shy of the 3,601 scored by HP's Core i7-powered Pro c640 Chromebook. This also translates to day-to-day use; the Latitude handled everything we chucked at it without the slightest bit of lag. It runs untroubled, no matter how many tabs and applications you have on the go; in that sense, it's a perfect companion for remote workers that will constantly be flitting between many different services.

Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 review: Battery life

RELATED RESOURCE

IT Pro 20/20: Meet the companies leaving the office for good

The 15th issue of IT Pro 20/20 looks at the nature of operating a business in 2021

FREE DOWNLOAD

Unfortunately, the 7410's battery undermines its 'enterprise-grade' specs, as it isn't that dependable without the charger. In our looped video tests, it lasted just 9hrs 53mins. That's very poor when compared with other Chromebooks like the aforementioned HP Pro c640, which scored 12hrs 38 mins, or the Asus Flip's result of 15hrs 14mins.

More disappointingly, it's actually a lot worse in real terms than even those paltry results would suggest. With a full roster of tabs and a few apps on the go, the Latitude barely made it beyond lunch. Enterprise customers will be impressed with the speed of the machine, but only if they don't stray too far from a plug socket.

Dell has also claimed its fast-charging capabilities can get the battery up to 80% in just an hour. However, we found that although it gets to 35% in just 20 minutes, it doesn't reach full charge for well over an hour, and an hour plugged in left it with 58% battery.

Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 review: Ports and features

You may not be too keen on paying the best part of a grand for a Chromebook, but The Latitude is an enterprise-grade machine with security controls that might appeal to business leaders or IT managers. It doesn't have a fingerprint sensor or any facial recognition, but there is a layer of control for the admin. Most of these come with Google's 'Chrome Enterprise', which has a range of features that IT admins can use to set up secure networks.

There's also a handy slider on the webcam if, like Mark Zuckerberg, you just don't trust it. It does occasionally get clipped when you open the lid and you can often cover your webcam unintentionally. The 720p webcam itself, however, is good and well placed above the screen so you only really need a couple of books to get it on eye level.

There is a very good selection of connection and inputs on the Latitude, with two USB-C ports for power and data transfer, an HDMI port, an SD card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There's also two USB 3.2 ports, one of which supports power delivery. Add to that Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 6 and you have almost all the connections an enterprise would need.

Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 review: Verdict

With all its various forms and add-ons, the top specs for the Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 were originally as much as £1,500. Our enterprise review unit with the i5 chip and the standard screen is £919 (exc VAT) but that also seems a bit too much for what it actually offers.

It may have a very good screen, a decent processor and a fairly nice build, but that doesn't really outweigh the comparatively poor battery life. Worse, this is a machine aimed at enterprise customers, so it ought to be more reliable. That said, the enterprise features are good, particularly with its focus on security. There are some good ideas here for the future of work, but it's not quite ready for the here and now.

Dell Latitude Chromebook 7410 specifications

Processor	10th Generation Intel Core i5-10310U
RAM	16GB
Graphics adapter	Intel Integrated UHD Graphics
Storage	256G PCIe NVMe 2230 SSD
Screen size (in)	14in
Screen resolution	1920 x 1080
Screen type	FHD SLP
Touchscreen	No
Memory card slot	Yes
3.5mm audio jack	Yes
Graphics outputs	USB 3.2 x 2, USB Type-C 2 x, HDMI
Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi 6 AX201 2x2 802.11ax 160MHz
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5.1
NFC	No
Dimensions	18.31 x 321.35 x 211.76 mm
Weight	1.39 kg
Battery	4 Cell 52WHr ExpressCharge

Acer Chromebook 714 review: Unfussy, affordable and effective

Mike Jennings — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 09:38:30 +0000

Chromebooks are sometimes dismissed as cheap and cheerful laptops, but there are loads of premium portables available with high-end design and high-quality displays – and with a 287% growth in Chromebook sales year-on-year in the last quarter of 2020, there’s no shortage of demand.

However, while pricey machines are great for people who want Chrome OS with some added sheen, notebooks that cost the best part of four figures aren’t exactly the most accessible.

The £491 exc VAT Acer Chromebook 714 is trying a different approach. This laptop hopes to undercut its expensive competitors at the checkout while still providing a stylish experience – and with enough power under the hood to handle everyday workloads.

Acer Chromebook 714 review: Design

Asus Chromebook Flip C436F review: The Chromebook grows up Best business laptops 2023: Top business notebooks from Acer, Asus, Dell, Apple and more Parallels Desktop brings Windows 10 apps to Chromebooks

A body made from gunmetal aluminium ensures that this machine looks professional. It’s decorated with subtle logos and there are no exposed seams beyond the base, so it looks sleek and smart. The only design downside is the large bezels above and below the screen, and that’s only a minor complaint.

The aluminium body ensures that this machine is strong enough to sling into a bag without issues. There are no weaknesses in its underside or edges, and it has a smooth 180-degree hinge that allows the device to lay flat. The Acer also has MIL-STD-810G certification, so it’s able to withstand significant drops. There’s a little movement around the keyboard and in the rear of the screen, but that’s acceptable at this price and we have full confidence that the Acer will survive busy working life.

This laptop weighs 1.6kg and is 18mm thick. It’s hardly hefty, but those dimensions do mean that the Acer is thicker and heavier than some of the more expensive Chromebook options on the market – for example, the HP Pro c640 and the Google Pixelbook Go are far more portable.

Acer Chromebook 714 review: Keyboard & trackpad

The full-size backlit keyboard delivers consistently excellent quality levels. The buttons have a moderate amount of travel as well as a fast, consistent, and pleasingly snappy typing action – they’re capable of handling hours of typing. The moving metal around the keyboard does mean it feels a little bouncy when compared to pricier, more robust machines, but that’s not going to slow you down.

As usual, this Chromebook has no numberpad – you’ll need the larger Chromebook 715 for that. Its row of function buttons is basic, too. You get shortcuts to alter the screen brightness, switch apps, go backwards and forwards in browser windows and change the volume, but options to modify the keyboard backlight or networking would have been welcome. More positively, there’s a full-size Enter key and large cursor buttons, and the Ctrl, Shift, Search and Tab buttons on the left-hand side are all suitably sized.

The trackpad is good, too; it’s large and responsive, with a smooth Gorilla Glass coating and snappy, shallow buttons.

Acer Chromebook 714 review: Display

The inclusion of a 14in, 1080p IPS display is a fine choice for everyday working, and the panel has a contrast ratio of 1,310:1. That’s a great result, and it means that this panel has decent depth.

Examine the benchmarks, though, and you’ll find significant restrictions. The panel’s peak brightness level of 249cd/m2 is acceptable for indoors but it’s not bright enough for using outdoors or even next to windows on days when it’s particularly sunny. The Delta E of 2.89 is decent, but the display only covered 57.8% of the sRGB gamut, so it can only render a relatively narrow range of colours.

For browser-based work, casual gaming and watching YouTube videos these results aren’t disastrous, but the lack of brightness and poor gamut coverage mean that colours are dull on this display. The HP Pro c640 and the Chromebook 715 had similarly underwhelming screens, but the Pixelbook Go’s panel is brighter and rendered an impressive 92.6% of the sRGB gamut. You’ll also find better screens on most Windows laptops at this price.

Acer Chromebook 714 review: Hardware & performance

The Intel Core i5-8250U that underpins the Acer is a couple of years old, but it’s still got four Hyper-Threaded cores alongside a base speed of 1.6GHz and a boost peak of 3.4GHz. That’s a capable specification, and Acer has paired the CPU with 8GB of memory and a 128GB SSD.

It’s not groundbreaking hardware, but it’s enough to deliver single- and multi-threaded results of 846 and 2,836 points in Geekbench 5 – results that outpace the Pixelbook but fall a little behind the larger Acer and the HP. They’re middling results, but the hardware didn’t struggle in day-to-day use. We opened more than a dozen Chrome tabs comprising several documents and spreadsheets, email clients, social networking sites and updating news pages while running Spotify in the background and the Acer didn’t flinch, remaining smooth and responsive throughout.

For everyday working, the Acer is perfectly adequate. However, if you want to tackle tougher tasks on your Chromebook – including light photo-editing and running Linux apps through a VM – then you’ll want to seek out a machine with a Core i7 processor.

It could also be worth abandoning Chrome OS altogether if you need serious CPU firepower: spending around £500 exc VAT on a Windows machine will get you Intel Core i5-1135G7 or AMD Ryzen 5 4500U processors. Both of those chips soar past scores of 1,000 and 4,500 in the single- and multi-core Geekbench tests.

The Acer’s middling benchmark speed was joined by merely average battery longevity. The Acer lasted for 11hrs 53mins in our battery test. That’s a middling result: better than the larger Acer, but behind the HP and Google machines. Using the Acer for more demanding tasks will see that longevity reduced a little, but ultimately you’re going to make it through a day of work with this machine and likely have power to spare.

Acer Chromebook 714 review: Ports and features

Each side of the Acer has a USB-C port that supports charging and DisplayPort, but bear in mind that one of those ports is used to charge the laptop. The Acer has one full-size USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, a single audio jack and a microSD card reader alongside a Kensington Lock slot. On the inside, connectivity is handled by dual-band 802.11ac wireless and Bluetooth 4.2, and there’s TPM for security.

For everyday use, that’s fine, but some rivals serve up HDMI outputs, too, and it’s not unusual to find Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 in current Chromebooks. A second full-size USB port would also have been welcome.

The small fingerprint reader worked well, registering our print every time we used it. The only downside is that it can’t be used to unlock the laptop - which is a limitation of Acer’s design, rather than Chrome OS - although it can be used to log in to services, make payments and verify your identity once the machine is unlocked using your password or PIN number. Acer’s machine also has a webcam alongside dual microphones with acceptable quality for everyday video calls, but it doesn’t have a privacy shutter. It’s got speakers, too, but don’t rely on them for anything beyond the most basic media duties – they’re feeble, with tinny sound and no bass.

Acer Chromebook 714 review: Verdict

The Acer Chromebook 714 can’t compete with pricier rivals on slim design and screen quality, and it often lags when it comes to raw power. If you want the market’s most stylish or speediest Chromebook, then you’re going to have to spend more.

It’s possibly one of the best value Chromebooks around, though: it undercuts the competition significantly, it’s got enough power to handle everyday workloads, and it has a sturdy, good-looking chassis and decent battery life. It’s a good-value middle ground between premium options and bargain-basement portables.

Acer Chromebook 714 Specifications

Processor	1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8250U
RAM	8GB DDR4
Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics 620
Storage	128GB SSD
Display	14in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS
Operating System	Chrome OS
Connectivity	Dual-band 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2
Ports	2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C/DisplayPort, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1 x audio, 1 x microSD
Dimensions	323 x 239 x 18mm (WxDxH)
Weight	1.6kg
Warranty	1yr RTB

CloudHQ fully integrates Gmail with Google Sheets

Praharsha Anand — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 17:26:38 +0000

CloudHQ has released an upgraded version of its Chrome-based web application that enables users to export important Gmail conversations to Google Sheets.

Dubbed “Export Email to Google Sheets,” the app is fully integrated with Gmail and G-suite, eliminating the need for physical storage devices to save data.

"Copying the information in emails from Gmail to Sheets gives small businesses the power to sort, analyze, and prepare email data in ways that simply wasn't possible before," said Naomi Assaraf, co-founder and chief marketing officer, cloudHQ.

Gmail vs Outlook: Which one is better for business? How to recover deleted emails in Gmail Major Google outage takes down Gmail, Drive, YouTube and more

Using the email parser feature in Export Email to Google Sheets, businesses can dissect invoices, signup or interest emails, order notifications, email campaign reports, and more for rapid integration with data analytics and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms.

Users can also create custom parsing rules to extract target keywords or leverage spreadsheets to filter and organize exported data by standard Gmail nomenclature, including Cc and Bcc. When used to extract and save all text from an email into a single PDF document, Export Email to Google Sheets makes for easy and error-free translation and sharing via a PDF attachment or Google Drive instead of forwarding an email dozens of times.

You can also track bounced and bad emails imported to spreadsheets using a Gmail label for re-examining. You can also link order and delivery tracking emails to supply chain management tools for greater visibility and improved operational efficiency.

"If your business receives a specific type of email all the time, and you use Gmail as your email provider, Export Gmail to Google Sheets is a powerful tool you can use to automate and improve how you respond to those emails," Assaraf said.

Export Gmail to Google Sheets comes with basic and premium plans. The basic plan offers support for 50 parsed emails per month, while the Premium Plan is unlimited.

HP Pro c640 Chromebook review: Nailing the basics

Keumars Afifi-Sabet — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 07:30:00 +0000

Keumars Afifi-Sabet/IT Pro

Although Chromebooks have long been regarded as cheaper, more simplistic notebooks, Google has in recent years sought to carve a space in the enterprise market for its Chrome OS-powered machines. A recent partnership with Dell, for example, signifies its desire to build out the Chromebook brand as a must-have enterprise device.

HP has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Google, with the manufacturer boasting a proven track record in building Chromebooks for users who aren’t just seeking a laptop that does the basics. On paper, its latest device, the HP Pro c640 Chromebook, looks to be a fully capable machine, combining a top-of-the-range Intel Core i7 processor with 16GB RAM and a 1080p touchscreen display. This is in addition to several useful security features and an encouraging collection of connectivity options.

HP Pro c640 Chromebook review: Design

The Chromebook’s straight-laced silver-coated aluminium exterior isn’t exactly unattractive, but it doesn’t stir any major excitement. Its sharp colour combines well with a robust chassis to produce a device that feels well-constructed. Beneath the lid is an expansive keyboard between two speaker grills, and positioned above a stylish and spacious glass-coated trackpad. The two halves are joined by a 180-degree hinge that lets you lay the Chromebook flat on a surface; this sleek lower portion, however, clashes with the thick black border that frames the display.

Asus Chromebook Flip C436F review: The Chromebook grows up Acer Chromebook 715 review: A display of woe Chromebooks are the Benjamin Button of tech

The HP Pro c640 is also let down by its weightiness, with the machine starting from 1.5kg. This makes it heavier than most notebooks in its category, and while it’s not disastrous, it is disappointing; even a highly capable 14in laptop such as the Asus Chromebook Flip C436F weighs in at just 1.2kg. There are devices on the market that are lighter still, with the LG Gram 14 at the more extreme end weighing under 1kg.

Meanwhile, although HP describes the Pro c640 as ‘the world’s thinnest 14in business Chromebook’, its thickness of 16.5mm is merely average compared to the wider market. More damningly, the aforementioned Asus Chromebook Flip C436F is thinner - with a depth of 13.7mm. There are meatier options available, though, such as the Acer Chromebook 715, which has a depth of 17.8mm and a weight of 1.95kg.

HP Pro c640 Chromebook review: Display

Our first impressions of the Chromebook’s 14in 1080p display were poor, largely due to the hideous thickened black border that encases it. Sadly, the quality of the touchscreen IPS panel is equally disappointing with a perfect storm of poor brightness and colour accuracy.

The matte display appears dimmer than you’d expect from any device that finds itself in a premium price bracket, and our testing confirmed this with a maximum brightness of 255cd/m2. For reference, the latest Dell XPS 13 generated an impressive score of 411cd/m2, with most decent enterprise machines clearing the 300cd/m2 hurdle. Similarly, an astonishingly bad 53.3% coverage of the sRGB colour gamut doesn’t do the Chromebook any favours, but isn’t surprising. To the naked eye, the colours appear dulled, and lack richness or definition.

HP Pro c640 Chromebook review: Keyboard and touchpad

Easily the best part of this device is its backlit and water-resistant keyboard, comprising well-spaced and comfortable chiclet-style keys that prove just as soft as they are snappy, making word processing a treat.

The c640’s keyboard is one of the best HP has fitted into its machines, benefitting from a fully-sized Enter key as well as Left and Right Arrow keys that aren’t crammed next to PgUp and PgDown functions. Not only does this render the keyboard a pleasure to use but removes the likelihood of inadvertently tapping the wrong key. This is something we’ve had to adjust to with many of HP’s conventional notebook keyboards. Admittedly, the left-sided Ctrl and Alt keys are comically oversized but that’s hardly an issue that will disrupt the day-to-day typing experience.

When using the smooth glass-coated touchpad, meanwhile, it can sometimes feel as if the cursor subtly skids and slides around because the surface itself is a little too slippery. Using a single finger to move the cursor is fine, for the most part, but the real problems arise with click-and-drag, and multi-touch functions such as pinch to zoom and Mac-style two-fingered right-clicking. Using the touchpad isn’t made any easier by a combination of a slight looseness in the hardware component, and the fact that performing a click requires a little more force than you’d expect.

HP Pro c640 Chromebook review: Specs and Performance

As previously alluded to, this Chromebook is fitted with an Intel Core i7-10610U CPU, based on the Comet Lake architecture, with a base frequency of 1.8Ghz and maximum turbo frequency of 4.9Ghz. This is combined with 16GB RAM and 128GB hard drive space.

While this sounds strong on paper, Geekbench 5 testing showed the performance levels were slightly disappointing for a Core i7 chip, producing a decent single-threaded result of 1,068 and a below-average multi-threaded score of 3,601. This is only marginally stronger, for example, than the Core i5 chip fitted into the Samsung Galaxy Book Ion, although it does outperform the latest Huawei Matebook X Pro on both counts. The latter device was fitted with the Intel Core i7-10510U chip and scored 854 and 3,436 on single-threaded and multi-threaded testing respectively.

While the HP Pro c640’s performance levels are adequate, for a similarly-sized notebook with genuine credentials as a powerhouse unit you need to look to the likes of the AMD-fitted Honor MagicBook Pro. This machine smashed our performance tests, registering a monstrous overall benchmarking score of 221 and Geekbench 5 results of 1,111 and 5,972.

HP Pro c640 Chromebook review: Battery

Lasting 12hrs 38mins in our looped film test, the HP Pro c640’s 60Whr battery is exceptional when stacked against a number of top-of-the-line notebooks, and surpasses the manufacturer’s own claim that it can last up to 12hrs.

Even though the standard for battery capacity in premium and high-power machines has improved in recent years, you’ll still struggle to find one that hits 11hrs let alone exceeds 12hrs. By comparison, the LG Gram 14 and HP Elite Dragonfly lasted 10hrs 17mins and 10hrs 2mins respectively. Only exceptionally long-lived devices like the Samsung Galaxy Book Ion and Asus ExpertBook B9450F lasted longer at 13hrs 3mins and 22hrs 6mins respectively.

HP Pro c640 Chromebook review: Ports and Features

Fitted into the HP Pro c640 is a hearty collection of ports including two USB-C and two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, in addition to HDMI 1.4 and microSD slots, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The device offers a decent level of support for external devices, such as hard drives and displays, while its support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 ensures users will benefit from the best possible level of connectivity and a healthy dose of futureproofing.

The c640 also features a small fingerprint scanner beneath the keyboard and to the right of the trackpad, which works pretty effectively, as well as a 720p webcam which generates an acceptable, albeit noisy, picture. Now becoming a common feature in HP devices, the webcam is also fitted with a subtle switch that pulls a shutter over the lens when not in use.

HP Pro c640 Chromebook review: Verdict

To its credit, the HP Pro c640 boasts a fantastic battery life and an exceptionally comfortable keyboard which makes it genuinely enjoyable to use for day-to-day tasks such as word processing. There are several black marks, however, mainly taking the form of a poor display and a fiddly trackpad.

These issues can be mitigated with the use of an external monitor and a mouse, but for the amount this device costs you should certainly be demanding more value. Similarly, although performance levels aren’t bad per se, multi-threaded performance was found wanting compared with the bar set by a host of comparable machines. This Chromebook certainly has its uses, but we’d be hard pressed to recommend it given its price. You’re better off either investing in a heavier duty machine with a good display and better performance, or downgrading to a weaker but more cost-effective configuration of the HP Pro c640.

HP Pro c640 Chromebook specifications

Processor	Intel Core i7-10610U
RAM	16GB
Additional memory slots	No
Max. memory	16GB
Graphics adapter	Intel UHD Graphics
Graphics memory	n/a
Storage	128GB
Screen size (in)	14in
Screen resolution	1,920 x 1,080
Pixel density (PPI)	157
Screen type	FHD IPS anti-glare On-Cell micro-edge WLED-backlit
Touchscreen	Yes
Pointing devices	Touchpad
Optical drive	No
Memory card slot	Yes (microSD)
3.5mm audio jack	Yes
Graphics outputs	USB Type-C, HDMI
Other ports	2 x USB 3.1
Web Cam	720p HD webcam
Speakers	Stereo speakers
Wi-Fi	Intel Wi-Fi 6 Dual Band Wireless LAN (802.11ax)
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5.0
NFC	No
Dimensions, mm (WDH)	325.1 x 205 x 16.5mm
Weight (kg) - with keyboard where applicable	1.5kg
Battery size (Wh)	60Wh
Operating system	Chrome OS

Chromium browser updates are creating random debug.log files

David Gargaro — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 15:39:38 +0000

The latest version of Chrome and all Chromium-based browsers contain a bug that causes the creation of random debug.log files on users’ desktops and folders.

On October 6, Google released Chrome 86 to the “Stable” branch, which auto-updated for all users. All Chromium-based browsers, including Microsoft Edge and Brave, upgraded to this version on that date.

What's next for Google Chrome? Week in Review: Google Chrome hits the web Your Views: Google Chrome OS Mozilla finds Google Chrome flaw

Since its release, Chrome version 86.0.4240.75 has been creating debug.log error log files on desktops and in other folders. The debug.log file is Chromium’s default log file it uses to log newly found errors. The bug creates debug.log files with the following message:

[1016/1644047.132:ERROR:directory_reader_win.cc(43)] FindFirstFile: The system cannot find the path specified. (0x3)

Google has not released an official explanation of the bug. It is not known if this is a new bug or Google forgot to turn off logging after enabling it.

Debug logs are system generated and appear in the Dashboard when configured by the developer in the SDK. Chrome is having difficulty iterating over the files and subdirectories in a folder, and is logging it as an error.

Users can resolve the issue by deleting the contents of the Chromium Crashpad folder.You can find the folder in the following locations:

Chrome: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Crashpad
Edge: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Crashpad
Brave: C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Crashpad

Follow these steps to delete the contents of the Crashpad folder and prevent the creation of debug.log files:

Close the browser with the debug.log issue
Go to the browser's Crashpad folder
Delete the contents of the Crashpad folder
Restart the browser to create a new Crashpad folder

Asus Chromebook Flip C436F review: The Chromebook grows up

Jonathan Bray — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 10:54:01 +0000

If there’s one thing the Asus Chromebook Flip C436F proves, it’s that Chromebooks are growing up. It’s been a slow process, but there is finally a good choice of premium laptops running Google’s OS. None more so than this convertible, which measures a skinny 13.7mm when closed. Slim bezels surround the 14in display and, at 1.2kg, it’s surprisingly light too.

Despite this lack of girth, the C436F is solidly made. There’s no play in the smooth hinge, which twists round the full 360°, nor much give in the chassis. And it looks fantastic with a white finish to the lid, set off beautifully by chrome effect hinges and a finely perforated grille at the rear of the machine for venting heat.

Asus finds space for a pair of USB-C ports, one on each side, which can be used for charging and connecting the machine to external displays and other peripherals. Other than this, ports are restricted to a 3.5mm jack on the left edge and a microSD slot on the right, although you shouldn’t need to expand the storage by much as there’s a 256GB SSD inside.

Google and Parallels bring native Windows apps to Chromebooks Acer Chromebook 715 review: A display of woe Chrome OS 87 makes life easier for parents with young children

The keyboard isn’t the best we’ve used on a Chromebook; that honour belongs to the Google Pixelbook Go. While it’s spacious, keys would benefit from more travel and the feedback is less positive than we’d like. There’s no Caps Lock key, but that’s an issue shared by all Chromebooks, and you can easily reassign the Search key as Caps Lock if you wish. We appreciate the backlit keys, but the transparent lettering can make it difficult to read them in bright natural light.

Despite this laptop’s small size, it comes with a large touchpad that measures 130 x 66mm. We found this both sensitive and reliable, and its size makes three and four-finger multitouch gestures easy to perform. Another bonus is that Asus finds room for a fingerprint reader, just above the Backspace key in the top-right corner.

There’s a stylus in the box for sketching and taking notes on the touch display. This wasn’t supplied with our review sample so we can’t say how effective it is, but we know there’s nowhere to stow it in the laptop, which is another minor irritation.

The screen is a peach; in fact, we prefer it to the Google Pixelbook Go’s display. A resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 works well on a 14in diagonal and, since it uses IPS tech, viewing angles are great. Peak brightness reached a not-so-amazing 303cd/m² but colour coverage is good, covering 97.7% of the sRGB colour gamut with decent colour accuracy.

While this display won’t play HDR material, it’s a great laptop to watch TV and films on, and you won’t have to don headphones every time as the stereo speakers deliver full, clear audio. There isn’t much in the way of bass, but there’s enough warmth to make watching the news or a documentary pleasant.

How fast is it? It’s hard to compare the performance of Chromebooks with that of other laptops because they work in a very different way. However, it’s still possible to make a comparison between other Chromebooks and, by this metric, the C436F is a winner. For instance, it scored 99 in Speedometer 1.0 compared to the Pixelbook Go’s 78; this is one of the big advantages of Asus using a tenth-generation Core i5 compared to the eighth-gen chip in the Pixelbook.

It’s a very quick and responsive machine and there was no point at which we felt the laptop ran out of gas. we had tens of tabs open and it didn’t break a sweat. It couldn’t match the Pixelbook Go’s astonishing 14hrs 15mins in our video-rundown battery test, but 10hrs 24mins is more than good enough for a full day’s work.

All this bodes well if you decide to push the C436F beyond Chrome OS, and indeed apps installable via the Google Play store, and instead run Linux-based software. If you want to do the latter, you have to install Linux from the Settings menu. Once done, it’s possible to install all sorts of stuff from the command line or by downloading DEB files.

It’s hard to pick holes in what the Chromebook Flip C436F has to offer. It’s a cracking little laptop: powerful and nicely made, with a great display, effective touchpad and decent keyboard. Battery life is very good, too. However, it’s expensive. Its only obvious rival is the Google Pixelbook Go, which comes in a £949 version with a Core i5 and 128GB of storage.

We would plump for the Pixelbook if push came to shove, but there isn’t much in it. The Go has a nicer keyboard and longer battery life, but the Asus has more storage, a superior display and a fingerprint reader. Whichever you choose, we’d wager you’ll be pleased.

Asus Chromebook Flip C436F specifications

Processor	Quad-core 1.6GHz Intel Core it-10210U processor
RAM	8GB RAM
Graphics adapter	Intel UHD Graphics 620
Storage	256GB SSD
Screen size (in)	14in
Screen resolution	1,920 x 1,080
Screen type	IPS
Touchscreen	Yes
Pointing devices	Trackpad, touchscreen
Memory card slot	MicroSD
3.5mm audio jack	Yes
Graphics outputs	2 x USB-C
Other ports	N/A
Web Cam	HD webcam
Wi-Fi	2x2 MIMO 802.11ax Wi-Fi
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5
Dimensions, mm (WDH)	320 x 205 x 13.7mm
Weight (kg) - with keyboard where applicable	1.1kg
Battery size (Wh)	42Wh battery
Operating system	Chrome OS

Chrome OS 87 makes life easier for parents with young children

itpro@futurenet.com (ITPro) — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 13:13:49 +0000

Chrome OS 87 is right around the corner, and a new feature just emerged ahead of its release. In the latest version of the Chromebook operating system, Google will add a new login screen that’ll make things a little easier for parents with young children.

Reviews round-up: Google Chrome OS examined Need to Know: Google Chrome OS Week in Review: Google Chrome OS Your Views: Google Chrome OS

In Chrome OS 87, Google is adding the ability to create a child account directly from the out of box experience (OOBE) screen — the screen you see when you initially boot your Chromebook when it’s new or after power washing it — according to Chrome Unboxed.

Currently, you must create the child account through the Family Link app on your Android device. You then create the child account in the Family Link app and finally add it to the Chromebook.

With the new process, you can simply click “Your child” on the OOBE screen and follow the prompts to create the child account. This process sets up the child’s email address and even suggests an email address based on the child’s name. Then to link the child account to your Family Link account, enter the email address and password associated with the Family Link account to set up all the restrictions you lie for your kiddo.

Chrome OS 87 is still about three months away from its full release, so check back for additional updates on the newest version of the Chromebook operating system.

Chrome 85 arrives with faster page loading and tab throttling

Justin Cupler — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 15:09:08 +0000

Google has officially launched Chrome 85, and it arrives with faster loading speeds thanks to two improvements: page guidance optimization (PGO) and tab throttling. Also helping user experience is the new tab-collapsing feature.

PGO is nothing new to Google Chrome, as it debuted on Chrome 53 in 2016. Then, it was only available on Windows and used Microsoft Visual Basic C++ to help speed up load times.

In Chrome 85, it’s available on Mac and Windows using Clang, and Google says it “consistently shows pages loading up to 10% faster at the median and even greater speed improvements when your CPU is tasked with running many tabs or programs.”

What's next for Google Chrome? Mozilla finds Google Chrome flaw Your Views: Google Chrome OS Google Chrome fixes browser engine flaws

While a speedier load time is good, one common complaint users have about Chrome is how many resources it commits to background tabs. Google is working on this with its new tab throttling, which is in beta testing now.

Tab throttling will pull resources from tabs that have been idle for a while and push them to your active tabs. Google claims this will increase loading speeds while saving your battery and memory.

Though the speed gains will be small, any improvement to Chrome’s resource usage will be a welcome change for heavy Chrome users.

Speaking of tabs, Google Chrome 85 will also include collapsable tabs. You can categorize a selection of tabs under a name and collapse them by clicking on the category name to reduce the clutter. If you need the tabs again, click on the category name to expand them.

Chrome 85 is rolling out to computers now, but its full rollout may take a few weeks.

Google Chrome will reward fast-loading sites with 'fast page' badge

Justin Cupler — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 12:59:49 +0000

Google has announced it’ll soon start tagging fast-loading sites in its Chrome browsers. The first version to get this update will be the Android Chrome browser.

Pages deemed fast loading, according to Core Web Vitals, will receive a 'fast page' badge in the link context menu. Users can access the link context menu by performing a long press on any hyperlink on a webpage.

Google Chrome 86 update could add 28% to your battery life What's next for Google Chrome? Google Chrome patched for the second time in a month Your Views: Google Chrome OS

Core Web Vitals looks at three key metrics when determining if a site is fast or not:

Largest Contentful Paint: The time it takes for a webpage’s main content to load.
First Input Delay: The time it takes before a user can interact with a webpage.
Cumulative Layout Shift: A page’s visual stability and the number of unexpected layout shifts a website has.

Sites that consistently meet or exceed the Core Web Vitals thresholds will receive the 'fast page' tag.

Because this tag is designed to help users on spotty internet connections know if a page will load quickly or not, only those who’ve activated “Lite” mode or turned on “Make Searches and Browsing Better” will see them.

Google is rolling the badge out on a limited basis on the Android Chrome 85 Beta, but a broader rollout will come soon. If you want to activate it now, you can type chrome://flags in the Chrome URL box and enable “Context menu performance info and remote hint fetching.”

There’s no word on when the 'fast page' tag will come to desktop.

Google Also announced it’ll make changes to curb the use of mixed forms, which are forms that live on HTTPS websites but transmit data outside of HTTPS. This puts the user’s sensitive data at risk of hackers, so Google will no longer offer autofill on them and will display an on-screen warning that the form is not secure.

Gmail for G Suite becomes a hub for corporate communications

Justin Cupler — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 16:57:27 +0000

Gmail has been going through a revolution lately with the addition of Chat one month, then Google Meet the following month. Now, Gmail is getting even deeper for G Suite organizations, as Google looks to make Gmail a one-stop hub for all things corporate communications.

This update will bring Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Rooms, file sharing, task tracking and email right into the space where users spend the most time: their Gmail inbox. It starts with the relative basics, giving all users quick access to Google Chat, Google Meet and Google Rooms without leaving their Gmail app or on the web.

Gmail’s Goggles stop drunken e-mails Gmail users hit by service failure Gmail set for offline access Hotlan trojan focuses on Hotmail, Gmail accounts

Google Rooms is one of the more robust additions, as you can click “Add Room” and segment off a space for a particular project or team. Within that space, you have a group chat feature, but it goes way beyond that. At the top of the Google Room is a tab named “Files,” where you can share files with the group without creating and tracking loads of folders on Google Drive. There is also a “Tasks” tab that allows you to set tasks for the group and track the progress and due date.

While adding more to your email may seem overwhelming, Google has included a “Do Not Disturb” mode that mutes notifications and lets others know you can’t be disturbed for a specific period.

In the Gmail for G Suite app, you can find the Chat, Rooms and Meet buttons on the bottom. In Gmail for G Suite on the web, you will find these in dropdown menus in the left-hand column, just under the “Mail” dropdown.

With everything grouped into Gmail, this seems like a great way to streamline corporate communications, sharing and collaboration. However, for those already overwhelmed by their inboxes, this could induce a slight panic attack.

Chrome disables feature that curtailed its memory-hogging ways

Justin Cupler — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 17:19:32 +0000

Google Chrome is the most popular browser in the world, but it’s also quite frustrating. The latter is well-deserved, as Chrome is quite resource-heavy, and gobbles up more RAM with each new tab you open. This became such a big issue that Microsoft fixed the problem while developing its new Chromium-based Edge browser. Google was so satisfied with the fix that it adopted it for Chrome.

Now, Google is scrapping the fix, claiming it may do more harm than good.

Chrome's market share stagnates Week in Review: Google Chrome hits the web Security flaws hit Google’s Chrome Clues to Chrome OS lie within the browser

The fix Microsoft developed, which the tech firm included in the Windows 10 May 2020 update, used the Segment Heap feature to lower RAM consumption in Chromium Edge by 27%. Since the new Edge is based on the same Chromium platform as Google Chrome, moving it to the Google browser was no issue.

Now, just about a month later, new data has led Google to scrap this feature pending more research. According to researchers, this fix did lower RAM consumption, but it also slowed the CPU by 10% and increased power consumption by 13%. A Chrome insider called this “too great for us too keep.”

According to the report from Techdows, this is why Chrome 85 has this feature disabled as default.

This doesn’t mean Chrome users are stuck with a memory hog, though. Google will run more tests and reconsider reactivating the feature, according to the Techdows report. Also, Chrome is feeling heat from the new Edge browser, which may push Google to include more updates to Chrome 85 to address this issue.

How to take a Chrome screenshot

itpro@futurenet.com (Rene Millman) — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 19:52:25 +0000

Taking screenshots in Chrome can be crucial for quickly capturing web page content, yet it can be more challenging than expected. When using a browser like Chrome, understanding the various methods to take screenshots can greatly enhance your efficiency.

Many devices allow users to take a screenshot by pressing a specific combination of buttons or keys. This combination differs depending on the operating system and the device.

Google Chrome has built-in screenshot tools for desktops, but they can be tricky to access. Once you find them, however, they are incredibly user-friendly.

Once you learn how to access them, the tools are easy to use. They work like the methods for taking a screenshot on a PC, or taking a screenshot on macOS.

How to take a Google Chrome screenshot

How to take a Chrome screenshot without an extension

(Image: © ITPro)

Chrome’s screenshot options are fairly intuitive to use but finding them takes some doing. To access them, follow these steps:

First, right-click on any empty space within the Chrome window and select 'Inspect' from the context menu (alternatively, you can use the shortcut Control+Shift+I on Windows and Linux, or Command+Option+I on Mac). This will open the Chrome Developer Tools panel.

Next, you need to open the command menu by pressing Control+Shift+P on Windows and Linux, or Command+Shift+P on Mac. This command menu allows you to execute various developer commands without navigating through the interface manually.

In the command box that appears, start typing the word 'screenshot.' This action will bring up a list of different screenshot types that you can choose from. Each option is designed for a specific type of screenshot, so select the one that best fits your needs, as detailed in the next section.

Click on the screenshot option that corresponds to your requirement. Whether you need to capture the entire page, just the visible area, a specific section, or an individual HTML element, Chrome’s built-in tools can handle it efficiently.

What type of screenshot can I take in Chrome?

There are four kinds of screenshots you can take in Chrome natively, depending on your need:

'Capture screenshot' takes a screenshot of the entire visible Chrome window, including only the content visible in the user window and discounting tabs, the bookmark bar, or any other on-screen content outside of Chrome.
'Capture full-size screenshot' is the same as ‘Capture screenshot’ but it captures an entire webpage from top to bottom - this is helpful for long pages that get cropped in traditional screenshots.
'Capture area screenshot' changes the cursor to a cross, allowing you to draw a selection box over the specific section of the browser window you wish to capture.
'Capture node screenshot' captures specific HTML/DOM elements on the page, which can be selected using the element inspection tool.

(Image credit: Future)

Once you select an option from the list, the screenshot should be downloaded automatically as a PNG image. The only exception to this is with the 'Capture area screenshot' feature, which will first prompt you to outline an area on the screen to capture. It's important to note that 'Capture area screenshot' only works within the Chrome window you have selected.

While these steps become familiar over time, there are more efficient ways to quickly take a screenshot without navigating through the developer console. Google Chrome offers several extensions that provide easy access to screenshot functionality along with other powerful features. These extensions can simplify capturing and editing screenshots, offering support for multiple image and video file types, including GIFs and screen recordings.

Most extensions are designed to be very user-friendly, allowing you to take screenshots with a simple click of a button. They often include robust editing tools, enabling you to annotate, crop, or enhance your images directly within the browser. Additionally, many of these extensions support various file formats, ensuring that your screenshots can be saved in the format that best suits your needs, whether it's JPEG, PNG, or PDF.

However, it's essential to consider your organization's security policies before installing any extension. Ensure that the tools you use comply with these guidelines to avoid any potential security risks. By leveraging these extensions, you can streamline your workflow, making the process of capturing and managing screenshots more efficient and less time-consuming.

Extensions for taking a screenshot in Chrome

A browser extension is a piece of software you add to your browser to change how it operates or add new functionality to it. There are thousands of extensions available through the Chrome browser, many of which offer screenshot functionality with just a click of a button.

These extensions are particularly useful as they support multiple image and video file types, such as GIFs and screen recordings. Additionally, they often come with powerful editing tools to annotate, crop, or enhance images directly within the browser. This versatility ensures that users can save their screenshots in formats that best suit their needs, whether it be JPEG, PNG, or PDF.

However, before installing any extension, it's essential to consider your organization's security policies to avoid any potential risks. By using these browser extensions, you can streamline your workflow, making the process of capturing and managing screenshots more efficient and less time-consuming.

We've highlighted five such extensions below, each designed to make taking screenshots in Chrome easier:

GoFullPage

(Image credit: gofullpage.com)

This easy-to-use extension lets you capture the entire webpage you’re on with just one click.

Simply click on the icon for the extension at the top right of the browser window, and it will capture the page in a scrolling screenshot. This extension can handle complex pages, including inner scrollable elements as well as embedded iframes.

Once finished, the extension will open a new tab containing the finished screenshot ready to be saved in your desired file format. These include JPEG, PNG, or PDF. If you want a PDF, you can also adjust the PDF page size.

Install GoFullPage here.

Awesome Screen Recorder & Screenshot

(Image credit: awesomescreenshot.com)

This highly-rated extension is free and has lots of useful features, including:

Capturing an entire webpage or just part of it
Support for PNG images
Adding comments or annotations to your screenshots
Blurring out any sensitive information you want to hide
Making MP4 video recordings of your computer screen with your narration

Once you complete your screenshot or recording, you can upload it directly to various project management tools, like Jira or Trello. You can also upload your screenshot directly to Google Drive through the extension.

Install Awesome Screenshot here.

Nimbus Screenshot & Screen Video Recorder

(Image credit: nimbusweb.me)

This is a sophisticated browser extension with a number of advanced tools, and its basic version is absolutely free.

Its key free features include:

Capturing an entire web page or part of it
Performing a “select and scroll” capture where you select a part of the page and scroll down to capture more of it
Capturing delayed screenshots
Capturing a screen in a mobile layout

The premium version starts at $5 (£4) per month and adds a few extra useful features, including:

Converting your screen recording to a GIF
Image editing
Adding a watermark to your screenshots
Cropping and trimming your video
Uploading videos to Google Drive or Dropbox

It can also operate with no internet access.

Install Nimbus Screenshot & Screen Video Recorder here.

Fireshot

(Image credit: getfireshot.com)

This is a partly free extension that also has a premium paid version.

As with most of these other extensions, you can capture the entire webpage or just the visible part of it. Or, by using your cursor, you can select a part of the webpage to capture.

You can save your screenshot as a JPEG, PDF, PNG, GIF or BMP. The files can be saved to your computer or sent via email.

Fireshot’s biggest selling point is its built-in image editor. You can easily and immediately crop, edit or annotate your screenshots in the editor.

The basic version of Fireshot is free, but the pro version with all the upgrades comes with a one-time price of $75 (£59). Besides giving you access to the image editor, the pro version also allows you to upload your screenshots to places like social media, Flickr, OneNote, or Picasa.

Install Fireshot here.

Lightshot

(Image credit: Future)

This is a free extension that excels in capturing selected areas quickly. It’s lightweight and offers basic online editing capabilities. You can upload your screenshots to the cloud for instant sharing and create quick sharing links. An additional feature allows you to search for similar images online.

Lightshot is particularly useful for users who need a fast and efficient tool for capturing and sharing screenshots without the need for extensive editing. Its simplicity and ease of use make it a popular choice among both casual and professional users. Whether you need to share a snippet of a webpage with a colleague or save an image for future reference, Lightshot provides a reliable and user-friendly solution.

Install Lightshot here.

Other extension options for taking screenshots in Chrome

Needless to say, there are many other screenshot extensions for Chrome. Honourable mentions include:

Blipshot automatically notes the page name, date, and time each time you take a screenshot. This makes it easier to find the screenshot later.

RELATED RESOURCE

Smarter AIOps

AI powered automation helping your business assure app performance

FREE DOWNLOAD

Marker is a paid professional tool used by tech workers who collaborate with teams of web developers. It allows you to “mark up” a screenshot with annotations and send it to teammates via project management tools like Trello, Jira, Asana, Slack, etc. All the reports Marker generates automatically include metadata about the web pages it captures. Marker plans start at $49 (£39) a month.

When it comes to taking screenshots in Chrome, users have a plethora of excellent and free options to choose from. Each extension offers unique features, thus it's essential to select the one that best meets your specific requirements. Whether you need a straightforward tool for quick captures and sharing or a more advanced solution for professional collaboration, there's certainly an extension that will cater to your needs.

Lightshot, for instance, is ideal for users who prioritize speed and simplicity. On the other hand, Blipshot offers the convenience of automatic timestamping for easy retrieval, and Marker provides professional-grade annotation and integration with team collaboration tools.

Ultimately, finding the right screenshot extension can significantly enhance your productivity and streamline your workflow, making it easier to capture, share, and manage visual information with efficiency.

Taking screenshots on Chrome mobile (Android & iOS)

While the methods above cover taking screenshots in Chrome on a desktop or laptop, what about your phone or tablet?

Unlike its desktop counterpart, Google Chrome on mobile devices (Android and iOS) does not have its own built-in screenshot function like the one hidden in the Developer Tools. Instead, you rely entirely on your device's native operating system screenshot capabilities.

Here's how it generally works:

How to share your Google Calendar

Sarah Brennan — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 16:22:46 +0000

Google Calendar had already been a staple of event scheduling and management for more than a decade when the pandemic – and subsequent shift to remote working – made calendar apps an absolute must for any organisation that values productivity and collaboration.

This was rather unsurprising, given that employees went from coworking at the same desk to performing the same tasks while miles away from each other. With the change as severe and sudden, few would have predicted that this working arrangement would become the new norm for the next 18 months, as well as continue with the hybrid working model.

Google Calendar's web app receives a long-awaited revamp Office meetings hit by chaos due to Google Calendar outage Apple fixes its spammy calendar with Report Junk feature Windows Phone 7 review: email, calendar and Microsoft Office first look

Although video conferencing platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom have often been hailed as the backbone of pandemic collaboration, the contribution of Google Calendar cannot be ignored. After all, it’s the humble Calendar app that made it possible for employees to successfully set up these virtual meetings – and ensure that they aren’t cancelled due to overscheduling or PTOs.

What is more important, however, the Calendar made it possible for organisations to maintain high levels of productivity without over-monitoring their staff and being too intrusive. After all, no one enjoys being spied on. Therefore, by sharing profiles, Google Calendar has made it possible for coworkers to see what other employees are doing, all while making it easier to schedule in a last-minute project catchup – or even some virtual drinks.

Whatever the reason for sharing your Google Calendar profile, read on to find out how to provide your colleague, manager, or even the entire team, with a glimpse into your own schedule.

If you're ready to share your Google Calendar with an individual, it takes just a couple of minutes and a few clicks. Here's how it works:

1. Navigate to calendar.google.com to open your Google Calendar. Google doesn't allow you to share calendars from within the Google Calendar app.

2. Find the "My calendars" section on the left-hand side of the Google Calendar site.

3. Hover your cursor over the calendar you'd like to share and click the three vertical dots to the right of it.

4. Click "Settings and sharing."

5. Click "Access permissions" on the left-hand side of the screen

6. Find "Share with specific people" and click "Add people" just below it.

7. Add the person or their email address and use the dropdown menu to determine their permissions.

8. Click "Send."

9. The recipient will then click the emailed link and add your calendar to their list.

In a team setting, a shared Google Calendar makes organising events and tracking meetings easier than ever. Check it out:

1. Open a browser and navigate to calendar.google.com to open Google Calendar.

2. Find the "My calendars" section on the left-hand side of your screen.

3. Hover your cursor over the calendar you'd like to share with your team and click the three vertical dots on the right of it.

4. Click "Settings and sharing."

5. Click "Access permissions" on the left-hand side of the screen

6. To share your Google Calendar with your team, add each team member's email addresses and use the dropdown menu to determine their permissions.

RELATED RESOURCE

The power to innovate

How to maximise digital transformation

FREE DOWNLOAD

7. After adding all team members, click "Send."

If you want to share a calendar with a larger team, start by making a Google Group, which allows you to easily share your calendar with your team and manage permissions accordingly.

To share with a group, simply follow the steps above and enter the Google Group title in place of the individual's email address.

What's nice about Google Groups is if a member leaves the group, they'll automatically lose access to your calendar without you manually adjusting permissions for that individual.

How to delegate your Google Calendar to someone

Google Calendar also allows you to give others full permission to administer your calendar. While having someone else manage your calendar might sound dreamy, we don't recommend granting full permission to many people or groups.

To delegate your Google Calendar to someone else, follow these simple steps:

1. Navigate to calendar.google.com to open Google Calendar and find the "My Calendars" section on the left-hand side.

2. Hover your cursor over the calendar you want to delegate, then click the three vertical dots to the right

3. Click "Settings and sharing."

4. Click on "Share with specific people" on the left, then click "Add people."

5. Enter your new delegate's email address and select "Make changes and manage sharing" from the dropdown menu on the right.

6. Click "Send."

How to make your Google Calendar public

For many, making their calendar public is the easiest option. Fortunately, Google makes doing this remarkably easy. Simply follow the steps below to make your Google Calendar public to all:

1. Navigate to calendar.google.com to open Google Calendar and find the "My Calendars" section on the left-hand side.

2. Hover your cursor over the calendar you want to make public, then click the three vertical dots to the right

3. Click "Settings and sharing."

4. Click "Access Permissions."

5. Click the "Make available to public" checkbox and choose the permissions from the dropbox on the right.

How to unshare your Google Calendar

If you've shared your calendar with someone but no longer want them to have access to it, you can unshare it too. Follow these steps to unshare your Google Calendar with a person or group:

1. Navigate to calendar.google.com to open Google Calendar and find the "My Calendars" section on the left-hand side.

2. Hover your cursor over the calendar you want to unshare, then click the three vertical dots to the right

3. Click "Settings and sharing."

4. Click "Access Permissions."

5. If you've set your calendar to be publically available, uncheck the "Make available to public" checkbox.

6. To stop sharing your calendar with a specific person, click "Share with specific people" on the right, find the user or group you'd like to remove and click the "X" next to them.

7. If you share multiple calendars with an individual or group, repeat the above steps for any other calendars you want to stop sharing.

Why I’m leading a browser double life

Barry Collins — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Business or pleasure? It’s a question you’ve probably been asked when making a foreign trip (remember those?), but not when deciding which web browser to use on your computer. However, over the past year or so, I’ve found myself – almost by accident – slipping into the habit of using one web browser for personal surfing (no, that’s not a euphemism) and another for work.

This might sound like a tremendous faff, but there are very good reasons for keeping my personal and business surfing separate. For the personal day-to-day stuff, I use Firefox. I returned to the Firefox fold after many years away because I was increasingly impressed with its privacy features.

Firefox on my Mac is set to the browser’s Standard level of Enhanced Tracking Protection, which means that social networks don’t get to stalk me all over the web, cross-site tracking cookies are thwarted and so are resource-hogging cryptocurrency miners and privacy-infringing fingerprinters. What’s more, primed with my email address, Firefox warns me if my password has been stolen because of its convenient tie-in with the excellent HaveIBeenPwned.com.

Best web browsers 2023: Google Chrome vs Microsoft Edge vs Firefox Google faces $5 billion lawsuit over 'private' mode tracking What is your digital footprint?

For work, meanwhile, I’m beavering away in Google Chrome. This is largely a matter of convenience. Certain sites and web services only play ball with Chrome because their lazy developers can only be bothered to make their sites work properly with the world’s biggest browser. And then there’s Google itself, which – artificially or otherwise – makes tools such as Google Docs work better in Chrome than its rivals.

Chrome also has the widest selection of browser extensions, such as the recently released Microsoft Editor – an excellent spelling and grammar checker for the browser, which helps to keep the articles I write online free of typos and split infinitives. That only came about because Microsoft Edge recently moved to the same browser engine as Chrome – the clearest case of ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ there’s ever been.

There are further advantages to keeping personal and business surfing in separate browsers. For one, this effectively creates two distinct online identities in the different browsers, meaning it’s harder for Google and the like to build a personal profile that covers both my personal life and work. There are practical benefits, too. I have both personal and business accounts with the same bank but, with two browsers, I can have the user ID (not the password!) for the personal account saved in Firefox and the business user ID saved in Chrome. Previously, I had to choose to save one identity or the other, because a browser won’t store two different IDs for the same site.

My bookmarks toolbar for each browser is very different, too. Firefox’s is festooned with links to football, gaming and other leisure sites; Chrome’s is stuffed with tech-news sites and the content-management systems for the various websites I write for. As for passwords, they’re all safely stored in the brilliant Bitwarden password manager, which has add-ons for both browsers, so no matter which one I’m in – Firefox or Chrome, desktop or mobile – I can blag my way into any site.

A browser for work and a browser for play. I never thought leading a double life would be this easy

Google Chrome 86 update could add 28% to your battery life

Justin Cupler — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 16:22:31 +0000

Google will throttle background Javascript timers in Chrome 86 to help boost battery life by up to 28%, according to TheWindowsClub.

Google Chrome is the most popular browser for a reason - and it’s not because it’s preloaded on nearly every PC on the market. It’s because Chrome is a robust browser with loads of built-in functions and thousands of apps that make our daily lives easier.

But it’s also got quite the appetite for voltage and drains your laptop battery quite quickly. According to reports, the Chrome 86 update may solve this by limiting Javascript timer wake ups in background webpages to one per minute. This throttling will mimic what Safari does to help save battery life.

Chrome updates to include voice-activated searching Google almost 'broke the web' with its latest Chrome update Chrome updates on Android paused after discovery of data-eating bug Google halts controversial Chrome update in wake of coronavirus outbreak

Google allowed more background activity in the past thinking it would help users when clicking back to a tab after it’s been idle for a while. But its testers found minimal benefits to most Google Chrome users.

In testing, Google engineers reportedly noted a two-hour improvement in battery life with 36 background tabs open and a foreground tab opened to “about:blank.” This was a 28% improvement in the benchmarking machine.

Because most users won’t have “about:blank” open on the foreground page, Google also ran a test with YouTube in the foreground tab. This throttling netted a 36-minute battery-life increase, which was a 13% gain compared to the current Chrome running on the same test machine.

For many, this may mean nothing. But for people like myself who always have at least a dozen tabs open, this could be huge when working sans plug access.

Google hasn’t confirmed the update will be ready in time for the Chrome 86 update. Stay tuned for more details.

Malicious extensions target Chrome users

Sarah Brennan — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 12:55:23 +0000

Researchers at Awake Security told Reuters a recently discovered spyware campaign attacked users via 32 million downloads of extensions from Google’s Chrome web browser. More than 70 of the malicious add-ons were removed after Awake Security researchers alerted Google of the issue last month.

According to Awake Security, the free extensions used in the campaign claimed to warn users about questionable websites or assist them with converting files into different formats. Instead, the extensions obtained a user’s browsing history and data in an attempt to secure credentials used to access internal corporate tools.

Based on the number of downloads, Awake Security co-founder and chief scientist Gary Golomb states this campaign marks the farest-reaching malicious Chrome store campaign to date. At this time, however, Google has declined to discuss how this campaign compares with those before it, the extent of the damage this particular campaign has caused or why the tech giant couldn’t detect and remove the extensions on its own.

Mozilla finds Google Chrome flaw Your Views: Google Chrome OS Analysis: Is Google Chrome OS bad for Linux? Week in Review: Google Chrome hits the web

Google spokesman Scott Westover told Reuters, “When we are alerted of extensions in the Web Store that violate our policies, we take action and use those incidents as training material to improve our automated and manual analyses.”

While it remains unclear who was behind the malware campaign, Awake Security tracked the domains used to register the extensions back to Galcomm, a registrar in Israel also formally known as CommuniGal Communication Ltd. Though Awake Security claims Galcomm should have known what was taking place after Golomb reported the problem to them, Galcomm owner Moshe Fogel was steadfast in telling Reuters his company is not at fault.

“Galcomm is not involved, and not in complicity with any malicious activity whatsoever,” Fogel told Reuters in an email.

Fogel claims to have no record of Golomb’s inquiries or reports, and when asked by Reuters to provide a list of suspect domains he was unable to provide a substantive response.

Malicious developers have been using Google’s Chrome Store as a means to distribute their campaigns for some time now. In 2018, Google claimed it would improve security related to Chrome add-ons. However, in February, independent researcher Jamila Kaya and Cisco Systems’ Duo Security discovered a similar Chrome campaign using fraudulent extensions had stolen data from 1.7 million users.

Gmail introduces new features to makes personalizing your inbox easier

Susan Johnson — Thu, 28 May 2020 15:47:19 +0000

Google introduced the new Quick Settings menu in an effort to help users explore and use various themes to tailor their Gmail experience. The options included under this new feature range from the ability to change the density of the text to adding reading panes, choosing a specific inbox type and choosing a theme for your inbox. Though these features aren’t completely new, they have been hidden in Gmail's settings, leaving most users unaware of their existence unless they explored every nook and cranny.

The new Quick Setting menu and its wide array of options is on the right side of your Gmail inbox. When making changes, users will see the changes in real time, helping them preview the new themes and settings before activating the changes.

The ability to customize the density of the text and the information displayed is the first option under the Quick Settings menu followed by the different inbox layouts. These layouts include priority inbox, the default layout with categories and tabs and others where users can see certain types of emails first, such as unread first, starred first, important first and more.

Google launches dedicated mobile app for Gmail Hotlan trojan focuses on Hotmail, Gmail accounts Gmail designer leaves Google Gmail’s Goggles stop drunken e-mails

There is also the option to turn on reading panes, which makes users feel like they’re using a traditional desktop client. On the other hand, Gmail's colorful themes help brighten up the space and turn the inbox into a personalized den.

Even with all the options, the Quick Setting menu ensures access to Gmail’s full settings screen isn’t disrupted and it's still available at an extra click on the 'See All Setting' button at the top of Quick Setting menu.

RELATED RESOURCE

How to overcome the barriers to personalisation

Leap over every obstacle and jump ahead of your competitors in the process

FREE DOWNLOAD

During an announcement about the new Quick Setting feature, the company said, “We're making these options easier to find and letting you explore them in real-time, so your actual inbox will update immediately to show you exactly what the setting will do. We hope this makes it easier to set up Gmail the way that works best for you”.

The Quick Setting menu will be available to G Suite customers and enabled by default for personal Gmail users.

Google began releasing Quick Settings for G Suite customers through Rapid Release domains on May 26 and will complete the rollout in 15 days. Users on the Scheduled Release domains will catch a glimpse of the feature starting June 22. Though the company didn't announce when users with personal accounts get to experience the update, we believe they should soon.

Google Pixelbook Go review: Have-a-go hero

Adam Shepherd — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 13:01:23 +0000

At the time of its launch in 2017, Google’s original Pixelbook was an absolute home run for the tech giant, demonstrating that Chromebooks have more potential than their reputation of being rinky-dink rubberised laptops for schoolchildren. On the downside, its professional appeal came with a rather hefty price tag of almost £1,000.

Three years later, Google is hoping to distil the Pixelbook’s charm to a wider range of consumers by introducing the new, budget-friendly Pixelbook Go. With prices starting in the upper £600s, it might prove to be quite successful in reaching a wider audience without sacrificing its hard-earned reputation. But is it as good as its predecessor?

Google Pixelbook Go review: Design

The Pixelbook Go doesn’t look as sharp as the regular Pixelbook, and we mean that in the literal sense; where the original was all sharp lines and right angles, this model has softer edges and more rounded corners. Although it doesn’t look as eye-catching or elegant as the first-generation Pixelbook, the change gives it an oddly cheery and user-friendly look.

The aluminium chassis also has a somewhat perplexing corrugated pattern on its underside. This presumably gives it a bit more stability on smooth surfaces, but it also adds to the laptop’s charmingly unique feel.

Aside from that, it’s a fairly boilerplate design, unadorned with extraneous design flourishes, save for subtle branding in the corner of the lid and below the screen. It’s finished in a smart matte black colour - although a pastel ‘Not Pink’ option is available with the second-tier Core i5 configuration - and it looks more than smart enough to comfortably blend into an office environment.

Its 13.4mm thickness is as slim as you could reasonably expect given the price, but its 1kg weight is really rather impressive, considering that it’s lighter than many modern ultrabooks and 2-in-1s. This is an exceedingly portable laptop, and one that you won’t at all mind taking on the go.

Google Pixelbook Go review: Display

Our review unit came with a 1080p display - which features on most Pixelbook Go configurations - but you’ll get a 4K ‘Molecular Display’ if you plump for the top-spec model. You probably won’t need to, though, as the 1080p version is one of the best displays we’ve seen on a Chromebook.

Like the Pixelbook before it, the Go’s 13.3in screen is great, hitting 92.6% of the sRGB colour gamut, with great colour accuracy and a good (if not exceptional) maximum brightness of 369cd/m2. It’s also a touch-screen, which is more useful here than it might otherwise be on a non-ChromeOS laptop, as many Android apps are still better suited to touch interactions than mouse-and-keyboard.

There’s no matte anti-glare coating to be had, sadly, and viewing angles could be better, but overall it’s far higher quality than most panels to be found at this price range. It would be just about good enough to use for colour-sensitive design work - although the continued lack of creative software support on Chromebooks makes this a somewhat unlikely use-case.

Google Pixelbook Go review: Keyboard and trackpad

The original Pixelbook has a rather outstanding keyboard, with clean, crisp typing action, minimal travel distance and firm feedback. Sadly, the Pixelbook Go hasn’t totally recreated this experience. The keys feel slightly more hollow, with mushier, less defined feedback and a slightly bouncier response than its forebear.

That’s not as much of a criticism as it might sound, though; the Pixelbook’s keyboard was phenomenal, so the fact that the Go’s is a little bit worse means it’s still pretty good. In fact, it’s leagues ahead of what you’ll find in most mid-range laptops.

The standard suite of ChromeOS hotkeys are in residence too, and it’s worth getting to grips with the various keyboard shortcuts - although you shouldn’t worry too much if you’re not already familiar with them, as most of them are very similar to their Windows and macOS equivalents.

When it comes to the trackpad, there’s very little to say. It’s surprisingly expansive given the size of the machine and is topped with smooth, matte glass, responding to gentle pressure with strong feedback. It functions well, but beyond that, there’s nothing surprising here.

Google Pixelbook Go review: Specs and performance

Google is offering the Pixelbook Go in a pleasingly wide range of specifications, from a wallet-friendly Core m3 model all the way up to a top-end model fitted with 16GB of RAM and a Core i7 processor. Our review model was the second-from-bottom configuration, including a Core i5 CPU and 8GB of RAM.

Google Pixel 4 review: Delight and frustration Best business laptops 2023: Top business notebooks from Acer, Asus, Dell, Apple and more Microsoft Surface Go review: Going for gold

Sadly, that Core i5 chip is one of Intel’s lower-powered dual-core Y-series processors, and an 8th-gen one at that - so don’t expect this machine to be winning any races. It’s the same chip that Google used in its Pixel Slate hybrid back in 2018, and it’s starting to show its age. In practice, it’s generally capable of coping with heavy multi-tasking in Chrome and running a decent amount of simultaneous apps, but performance will start to falter if you overload it too much. We also intermittently found that it failed to wake up from sleep, requiring a forced reboot. The nature of ChromeOS meant that this never took long and we never lost any work, but it indicates slightly spotty performance.

This was borne out in our benchmark tests; while a single-core score of 761 in Geekbench 5 isn’t far off the 808 racked up by the Surface Pro 7, its multi-core score of 1,373 trailed some way behind most other competitors. In previous years, this probably wouldn’t have been an issue - a decent-sized handful of Chrome tabs and a few Android apps running simultaneously were all you needed in an average Chromebook.

Now, however, that slight power deficiency is felt a little more acutely. You see, Chromebooks can now run Linux apps, which opens up a whole new world of desktop software that could really benefit from a little extra oomph. Sadly, the underwhelming multitasking performance combined with the fact that Chromebooks run Linux in a VM means that Linux apps on the Pixelbook Go don’t perform as well as they could do. If you’re using it for a bit of casual testing, then you’ll probably be OK, but full-time Linux devs are better off elsewhere.

Still, while this is a shame, the fact that Linux apps run at all makes the Pixelbook Go infinitely more versatile than the Chromebooks of old, and the world of Linux software is well worth exploring.

Google Pixelbook Go review: Battery life

The blow of the rather lacklustre performance, however, is cushioned by the benefit of first-class battery life. In the series of tests we conducted, the Pixelbook Go was capable of enduring a staggering 14hrs 15mins of work time, snatching the title of the most durable Chromebook we’ve ever tested (not to mention its Windows-based competitors). Over 14 hours of battery life lasted us a full busy day at work and not only did it leave us some charge to spare, but also saved us from the undignified race to find a power outlet.

However, we needn’t have worried even if we had somehow run out of power: the Pixelbook Go is equipped with fast-charging capabilities which will give you at least two hours of battery life in as little as twenty minutes of charge time

Google Pixelbook Go review: Ports and features

Unsurprisingly for such a relatively minimalist device, the Pixelbook Go has a sparse selection of ports. In fact, there are just two USB-C ports (one on either side), and while both support display output and charging, they’re not Thunderbolt 3-enabled. That latter point is no great loss, however, as all it means is slightly slower data transfer speeds.

It’s also sporting Google’s Titan C security chip - although based on findings regarding the company’s standalone Titan security keys from last year, we wouldn’t cancel any antivirus subscriptions just yet.

Google Pixelbook Go review: Verdict

We were deeply impressed by the original Pixelbook, which wrapped Google’s increasingly capable operating system into a slim, sophisticated shell. Its sophomore effort, however, shows that it’s not just high-end luxury devices that the company can turn its hand to. The Pixelbook Go offers all of the things we loved about its predecessor - including an elegant, well-designed chassis, smart software capabilities and a gorgeous screen - in a much more approachable and wallet-friendly package.

There are some quibbles, to be sure. The performance isn’t quite what it could be, for one - although we’re not sure we’d sacrifice that outstanding battery life for a bit more oomph, given that ChromeOS still can’t run a lot of the intensive software that needs it. That in itself is still a bit of a problem, and as with the Surface Pro X, organisations looking to roll out this laptop are advised to make sure they can access all the apps and services they need to within the constraints of ChromeOS.

With that being said, those constraints aren’t as tight as they used to be, thanks to robust support for Linux and Android apps. It’s not as universally-compatible as the almighty Windows, but there isn’t much that it can’t do these days.

The real knockout blow is that price, though. At less than £700 before tax, it’s amazing value, and you’re unlikely to find a laptop that’s this capable and well-designed at this price - no matter what OS it’s running. This is a no-brainer for organisations using G-Suite, but even if you aren’t, this might just be what convinces you to give it a go.

Google Pixelbook Go specification

Processor	Intel Core i5-8200Y
RAM	8GB
Additional memory slots	No
Max. memory	16GB
Graphics adapter	Intel UHD Graphics 615
Graphics memory	Shared
Storage	128GB
Screen size (in)	13.3
Screen resolution	1,920 x 1,080
Screen type	166
Touchscreen	Yes (10-point multitouch)
Pointing devices	Touchpad
Optical drive	No
Memory card slot	No
3.5mm audio jack	Yes
Graphics outputs	USB Type-C
Other ports	USB Type-C
Web Cam	1080p
Speakers	Stereo
Wi-Fi	802.11ac
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 4.2
NFC	No
Dimensions, mm (WDH)	311
Weight (kg) - with keyboard where applicable	206
Battery size (Wh)	14.5
Operating system	311 x 206 x 14.5mm

Android gets new security sandboxing features

Adam Shepherd — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 09:10:00 +0000

Google has brought new security features to web users on Android, with the integration of browser sandboxing capabilities to its Chrome app.

As of Chrome version 77, Android users are now protected by 'Site Isolation'. This sandboxing feature involves isolating each browser tab from the other tabs in the session, and works by ensuring that web pages from different domains are run as separate processes, reducing the risk of side-channel attacks like the Spectre flaw.

This feature has been active on desktop instances of Chrome for some time, and the Android version is somewhat slimmed-down by comparison; in order to reduce performance overheads, Site Isolation is only enabled for password-protected sites, where users may be at risk of having their credentials stolen. This will help lessen the impact of the feature on smartphone speeds, particularly for cheaper devices with less RAM.

How to build a comprehensive cyber security strategy Mastering endpoint security implementation A complete guide to data encryption

On desktop platforms, meanwhile, the existing sandboxing features have also been strengthened. In addition to side-channel attacks, Chrome can now defend against attacks involving a fully-compromised renderer process.

To coincide with this, the company is temporarily expanding its bug bounty programme to offer greater rewards for bugs involving Site Isolation, as well as including cross-site data disclosure attacks that involve compromised renderers.

Sandboxing is a common security measure, and refers to the process of isolating an environment from neighbouring systems in order to prevent the spread of harmful activity. Sandboxed environments are commonly used by researchers to analyse malware activity, as they allow the malware to be studied without risking the security of the rest of the network or operating system.

How to delete a Gmail account

itpro@futurenet.com (Jane McCallion) — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 15:43:00 +0000

Despite being the most popular email service in the world, many are not sold on Google's Gmail service. Whether it's about privacy or just a matter of taste, there are many valid reasons to delete a Gmail account.

How to recover deleted emails in Gmail Gmail overhaul aims to reduce worker reliance on Slack and Zoom Gmail introduces new features to makes personalizing your inbox easier

Since its launch in 2004, the free-to-use app has built up a user base of almost 2 billion, largely due to the fact it is also bundled in with the Workspace productivity suite (formally known as G Suite). However, in that time there have been a number of issues and updates that have annoyed some users. These include security mishaps, outages, and the ever-increasing use of targeted advertising.

Whatever the reason, it's relatively easy to delete a Gmail account. And even if you're not sure, or happy with the service, it's important to know the option exists and how it's done.

Deleting a Gmail account

Before you delete any email account, the first thing you want to do is make sure all your contact details have been exported. It’s probably worth checking whether there are any emails you want to download or forward to your new email account, before everything is deleted.

You will need to access a desktop or laptop computer with an internet connection, as Gmail apps can't be used to delete accounts. Also, mobile browsers are too difficult to use in these circumstances.

1. In a web browser, go to Google account page: https://myaccount.google.com.

2. Click on the sign-in button in the top right corner and enter the details for the Gmail account you wish to delete.

3. Once you have logged in, look for "Account Preferences" – this will be in the topic boxes in the centre of the web page.

4. Then click on "Delete your account or services".

5. On the next page, click on "Delete Products". You will be asked to enter your password again.

Note: Before you delete your account, it's a good idea to download a backup copy of your data.

6. Follow the "Download Data" link to download a full copy of your Gmail messages via Google Takeout.

7. When that's backed up, click on the trash icon next to Gmail.

At this point, if you use other Google services, you will have to provide an alternative email address to continue using them.

Note: that Gmail may already have a secondary address you used when setting up this Gmail account.

To continue using these services, you will have to send a verification email to this alternative email address. Once that email has been received, click on the verification link to verify the new sign-in address.

Once you have signed in with this alternative email address, the deletion of your Gmail email account will be finalised.

If you have used IMAP to access Gmail, only messages copied to a local folder will be kept. Any other emails will be deleted, and folders synchronised with the closed Gmail account will also be removed.

How to delete Gmail account from phone

As simple and straightforward as it is to delete a Gmail account on a computer, it's also very easily done via a smartphone. Given the way in which the majority of us browse the web and check our emails, it is quite likely that many would have a preference for using their handsets.

How to delete Gmail account from iPhone

From the home screen tap 'Settings'
Scroll down to 'Passwords and Accounts'
Select 'Gmail' and hit the button to 'Delete Account'.
After that, it's just a case of confirming the choice by selecting 'Delete from my iPhone'.

How to delete Gmail account from an Android phone

For Android users:

Open the Settings menu
Navigate to either 'Accounts' or 'Users and Accounts' – it may be different depending on the manufacturer of your device, as Samsung, OnePlus, and Google all have their own UIs.
From here tap the Gmail account you wish to remove.

How to recover deleted emails in Gmail

Clare Hopping — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 11:03:00 +0000

Knowing how to recover deleted emails in Gmail can be a handy skill to avoid overlooking important correspondence and ensure your communications are up-to-date.

Gmail vs Outlook: Which one is better for business? How secure is Gmail? How to delete a Gmail account

Deleting emails accidentally or in the heat of the moment is common, and we’ve all been there. When dealing with a wave of emails each day, accidentally hitting the wrong button and deleting something is easily done. But don’t worry, it’s possible to recover these deleted emails.

Gmail has built-in mechanisms to prevent you from losing data, and these tools can also help you to recover emails that you've deleted on purpose but then need to retrieve at a later date.

However, It should be noted that these safety mechanisms aren't foolproof, and you won't be able to retrieve every email in Gmail. It's good practice to ensure that you make a note of any important information outside of your email inbox, just in case anything happens to it.

That said, understanding how to recover deleted emails in Gmail is an essential tool for any worker.

This guide outlines how you can recover any deleted correspondence, but specifically in Gmail. We also have a guide on how to recover deleted emails in Outlook if you are experiencing a similar situation on that service.

How to recover deleted emails in Gmail

It can be fairly easy to accidentally delete an email, or delete something you later realise is important, and Google understands this. Gmail, like many other email platforms, is designed in a way that when the delete button is used, the message is moved to another folder, rather than being removed outright.

This folder, known as Trash or Bin depending on your region, allows you to review and recover deleted emails as necessary. However, by default, Gmail will only hold these deleted messages for 30 days, after which time the content is lost forever.

There are some exceptions to this rule. Those organizations using Google Vault can implement policies that allow users to recover deleted emails in Gmail that are older than 25 days, provided it meets specific retention rules.

It's also possible for Admins to recover permanently deleted data - i.e. emails that have been deleted from the Trash or Bin folder - up to 25 days after the date of deletion. This should be seen as a last resort, as once the data becomes older than 25 days, it is truly lost forever.

Recover deleted emails from the Bin or Trash folder

If you do accidentally delete an email and you haven't cleared the Trash yet, do the following:

Head to the Bin or Trash folder, which should be displayed on the left sidebar

Search for the email you think might be gone for good. If you're not sure what it was called or can't remember any other information that may appear in it (such as the recipient), you can browse through the entire folder and reorder the Gmail folder if you so wish.

When you've found the email, you can send it back to your inbox or file it away in a folder by clicking on the folder icon under the search bar

You can also return it to its previous location by tapping the x' next to the Trash icon by the subject line.

Note: If you happen to have permanently deleted your email from the Trash, or 30 days have elapsed since you deleted it then you'll have to dig a little deeper. This is because Gmail automatically clears emails from the Trash 30 days after they were placed there.

What if I can't find my email in the Trash folder?

If the email is not in your Bin or Trash folder, it's very likely that you have either emptied the folder previously, and so deleting everything in the process, or you have manually hit "Delete Forever" on the email itself.

This generally means the email can't be recovered, however you can log a ticket with Gmail's Support Team, who can look into retrieving the email for you. However, this is unlikely to be successful.

This support tool is generally only useful for those looking to recover a deleted email in Gmail that has disappeared as a result of account compromise, rather than user action.

To create a ticket with Gmail support, follow these steps:

Head to Gmail's missing email web page

Fill out the form with the necessary details, such as the email address from which the emails have been deleted, whether you are currently logged in, and a short description of the problem

Once filled out, click on the Submit button

This will be a bit of a long shot for most scenarios, but it is worth submitting a ticket as soon as you spot the issue - the longer you wait, the less likely you will be able to successfully recover a deleted email in Gmail.

I can't find the Bin or Trash folder

Sometimes the Trash folder is hidden from view. If you can't see the folder, do the following:

Click on the cog icon at the top right of the window

If Quick Settings is enabled, click "See all Settings"

Click the Labels tab

Find the Bin or Trash labels in the list displayed, and click on the 'Show' button

You will now be able to see the Trash folder and recover any emails found in there.

IT Pro Panel: Why collaboration platforms are so hard to deploy

Adam Shepherd — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 08:00:00 +0000

Digital transformation is one of the biggest trends in business today, as organisations try to reinvent their tools, processes and procedures in order to exploit the benefits of modern technology.

Four tips for effective business collaboration The role of collaboration in digital transformation Collaboration isn’t just about tech

For many companies, the first step in this process is moving from company-wide email to cloud collaboration platforms like Slack, Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams, and it's easy to see why; platforms such as these promise increased agility, greater flexibility and integrations with a wide variety of modern SaaS tools.

However, while in theory these platforms may sound like an appealing proposition, the practice of rolling them out across an entire organisation often proves far more difficult than first thought. There are numerous challenges to contend with, such as picking a platform in the first place, as well as getting users on board with a new set of tools.

We spoke to some of IT Pro's expert panellists to find out what it's really like playing the collaboration game.

The collaboration situation

To understand the realities of deploying these platforms, it's worth examining why they're so attractive in the first place. As we've already noted, the benefits offered in terms of third-party integrations and business mobility are numerous, but all of our panellists cite the same reason for wanting to roll out a collaboration platform.

"The IT department was looking at ways to promote collaboration as a way to reduce the use of email," says Patricio Colombo, founder of CIO on Demand; "That is always a complaint people have, but they never stop using it."

Colombo often works on a freelance basis, acting as an interim CIO while companies are looking for a full-time replacement or for the duration of a specific IT project. After working for clients who were using more advanced file-sharing platforms, he says that "sharing documents via email is one of the most painful things I had to go back to."

Richmond Events IT Director Liam Quinn agrees, saying that "email can be slow and sharing files without a proper solution is difficult and cumbersome". The 120 or so employees that make up Richmond Events are spread out across four countries and, while the company has experimented with a number of platforms, staff still rely almost exclusively on group email chains.

For Dominos UK CISO Paul Watts, another benefit is the immediacy that a unified collaboration platform can provide, which helps bring teams together - particularly through the use of video and audio technology.

"The ability to see and hear offshore workers makes the teams more relatable and sociable, and the advances in network and communications technology actually makes this a pleasant experience - remember the old days of trying to use NetMeeting over an ISDN or dial up link? And the ability to work on a document together in real time, or exchange ideas on an interactive whiteboard is fantastic, although I'll admit it takes some getting used to."

Slack is arguably the most visible example of this kind of software; its 'freemium' model has encouraged widespread adoption, particularly among startups and smaller teams. In fact, this is often how such tools are first introduced to the company, as an example of shadow IT. This, Watts explains, was what happened at Dominos.

"Our developers are innovators with brains the size of planets, and their adoption of Slack as a mechanism for collaboration was not something I wanted to block arbitrarily as an unsanctioned shadow application. In fact, it was a great way for us to learn how a more broad rollout of online collaboration tooling could work within the confines of our security policy and processes, and the varied skillsets of our entire business community."

Dominos eventually decided to adopt Microsoft Teams as its company-wide collaboration platform, predominantly because of its strong integrations with Office 365, which Watts says worked as part of a broader digital strategy.

"Teams is a more rounded mainstream collaboration platform for our needs and more easily lined up with the rest of the business' use of Microsoft tooling. Our devs respect that and have adopted Teams alongside the rest of the business whilst continuing to leverage Slack for their own niche needs, and I use CASB to keep an eye on things."

This is the same reason that Quinn also wants to roll out Teams across Richmond Events, despite previous unsuccessful experiments with Yammer, Microsoft's earlier attempt at corporate collaboration software. "It ties into everything else we use," he says, "even if it doesn't deliver everything we would ideally like".

Colombo, by contrast, is not as big a fan of Microsoft's platform, arguing that Microsoft is building more superfluous tools when it should be focusing on improving the collaboration aspects of Office itself.

"Every time you share the document, unless you do so from Office 365 and not from the desktop, you create a different link," he notes, "so you have different people accessing the same document from different links. It's slow and clunky, and it works in the end, but it takes ages to get there.

"For me, that's the heart of collaboration, and G Suite did it very well, and Microsoft could go further than [Google] because it has the desktop product as well, but it doesn't. Why do I need then to keep downloading different tools to do the same?"

Collaboration consternation

Of all of the potential issues that can impede the rollout of collaboration software - compatibility issues, interoperability with other services, migrating users - the biggest problem reported by all of our panellists was a lack of adoption by the wider business.

Both Quinn and Colombo report that when staff have been asked to use a new platform such as Yammer or Facebook Workplace, uptake and engagement has been low, with many people simply defaulting back to email chains.

"Overall, the people I tried these with considered they had yet another environment to use and remember, and there was no uptake," Colombo says. "Mind you, it might have been a failure of implementation, but still, there was no appetite for it then. If people are happy using a specific platform, and it's useful for them, it's very difficult to move them elsewhere."

"I think users are becoming really tired of having thousands of systems to use," Quinn agrees. This is one reason, he says, why he thinks Teams could work for his organisation, as it's effectively an extension of the company's existing systems. When previous systems have been tried, he says, "they always migrate back to email".

Even Watts' developers, who were the ones who introduced Slack to Dominos in the first place, have proved somewhat unwilling to fully migrate to the company's Teams platform. Watts notes that "Slack use is dying out", but it's still in use within the company despite the fact that the developers aren't using it for anything radically different than what they use Teams for. "I suspect it's just a case of 'old habits die hard'," he notes.

Business versus IT

Another frustration reported by our panellists was the level of active resistance received from other areas of the business outside the IT organisation. Much of it, they said, tied into the age-old gulf between IT and other departments, and the new platforms were often seen by other teams as an unnecessary tool being foisted upon them.

"The platforms were seen as 'an IT 'thing'," Quin explains, despite business stakeholders specifically asking for them. He also notes that management staff were among those who quickly went back to email threads. "The business asks IT to look into how to resolve an issue and when they do, it's 'IT imposing something'."

Colombo has also experienced this, and argues that the most successful way to avoid it is to ensure that any widespread platform rollout is supported by a 'business sponsor' - something that Watts agrees with.

"The secret to adoption is for these initiatives to be driven by the business, owned by the business, and for IT to become the servient partner," he says. "Many Office 365/G-Suite adoption projects fail because they are completely IT-led."

For Watts and Colombo, this is a perfect illustration of the continuing animosity that often exists between IT and other business units. "For some reason, we are still seen as outsiders to the core business," Colombo says, with Watts adding "you'd think IT would have learnt the whole 'stakeholder management' thing by now!"

"The importance of strong business partnering in technology functions cannot be understated in this day and age," he says, "otherwise those technology functions become largely redundant or ineffective."

According to our panellists, the resistance largely stems from a fear of change. Watts revealed that once business stakeholders had the chance to actually get to grips with the new platforms, obtaining buy-in was quite straightforward, saying "a lot of the problems were not problems at all; they were pushback due to fear of the unknown, i.e. poor stakeholder and change management."

"Absolutely," Quinn adds; "No technical issues, just resistance and/or fear of change."

So what does the future hold for collaboration software in terms of adoption and uptake? Well, while it's fairly clear that email isn't going anywhere any time soon, Watts thinks that the arrival of younger staff in the workplace will slowly soften resistance to newer tech and working methods.

"In my opinion, this will change over time," he argues. "Newer generations show signs of being much more accommodating of business change, and adapting more quickly to technology evolution and innovation."

Without exploring these platforms, businesses run the risk of missing out on opportunities such as stifling nascent digital transformation efforts, which Quinn believes his company has, to a certain degree. "Unfortunately, we'll never know," he says. "My gut feel says yes... but how do you prove it?"

If you're a senior IT decision-maker and you'd like to apply to be part of the IT Pro Panel, please email panel@itpro.co.uk.

Gmail vs Outlook: Which one is better for business?

Clare Hopping — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 10:12:00 +0000

The question of whether to use Gmail vs Outlook is a recurring theme for business users given the popularity of both services. They're both easily accessible through a variety of means either through their own dedicated apps or via the web at mail.google.com and outlook.com respectively.

While the likes of Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams would rather we stopped sending emails entirely, legacy messaging systems have proven time and again to be future-proof. And despite the myriad instant messaging services currently available to us, the fact remains that email is still king.

The most secure email services of 2023 10 best ways to sign off an email and 10 sign-offs to avoid - and why Five giveaways that show an email is a phishing attack

A key factor in email's enduring popularity might well be the need to have an email address to sign up to services like Slack and Zoom, making it something of a foundational service for modern life.

And there are two main contenders which meet our needs in this regard, prompting users to frequently ponder which is best suited to their individual circumstances.

Gmail vs Outlook: A history of both services

Gmail launched on April Fool's Day in 2004, but it certainly was no joke. Gmail quickly became the main challenger to Microsoft's established Outlook service. The web version of Outlook actually started life as 'Hotmail' in 1996, and was changed to MSN Hotmail, then Windows Live Hotmail before finally adopting the Outlook branding used by Microsoft's business email client in 2013.

These days, Outlook caters for business and professional users, offering a range of services matching that of Gmail, while the Mail app is a simplified app designed for the everyday user.

Gmail vs Outlook: Interface

Being the two biggest players in the email space naturally means we're talking about a clean pair of interfaces.

Outlook takes its cue from the Windows Modern UI style, also known as the Metro user interface, while Gmail was, until recently, considered the "uglier" of the two.

This changed in 2018 when a comprehensive redesign saw its aesthetics and user experience vastly improve - looking far more in line with Outlook.

Gmail had previously prioritised simplicity, although some would describe this as plain. The redesign improved on this simplistic feel while retaining the ability for users to concentrate on emails themselves rather than face any distractions.

The reading pane on Outlook is switched off by default, but can be enabled quite simply. Gmail also features a reading pane, which can be accessed through the settings menu.

Gmail vs Outlook: Folders, labels, and searches

One of the most significant things Google did to differentiate Gmail from other email services was to forgo folders in place of labels. This meant that messages can be tagged with specific labels depending on your organisational system, with individual emails capable of carrying multiple labels.

The decision to support labels instead of folders remains a rather controversial topic for some users. However, this does offer an advantage in that emails can be organised into several places at once without the need for messy duplicates.

If Gmail is set up through a traditional email client, labels will appear as folders, and emails with multiple labels will appear in multiple folders.

Outlook does have some good organisational features and includes a traditional folder structure, which does make it an easier experience for some users. The service also has a system of categories. These differ from labels in that they are tags for messages rather than pseudo-folders.

You can apply more than one category to a message, but this will not affect its place in folders. Outlook also automatically tags certain messages with categories such as Documents, Photos, Newsletters, etc. These are known as Quick View folders.

Search is probably why Gmail exists at all. It was part of its raison d'etre when first conceived, the convenience of an email service that could be searched as easily as one would use a search engine. Simply typing search terms into the search bar at the top of the webpage should unearth what you're looking for.

Users can employ more advanced methods by typing in shortcuts such as "from:" or "to:". Additionally, Gmail is reasonably powerful at deciphering typos, able to deliver messages related to or closely resembling search terms rather than taking purely what it is given by a user.

Meanwhile, Outlook boasts similar search facilities with advanced methods of finding the right information quickly. The Quick View folders enable users to instantly search through messages for the last few emails containing photos, for example.

But while Outlook's search function is good enough to do the job, it's nothing exciting, and nowhere near as polished as Gmail.

Gmail vs Outlook: Connectivity

Gmail supports both POP and IMAP, meaning that pretty much any email client on most operating systems will work off the bat with the email service. Even Microsoft Outlook will play nicely with it.

Outlook also supports POP and IMAP, and although in the past it has faced claims of connectivity issues. Nonetheless, it generally handles both well. Outlook also supports Microsoft ActiveSync, which is used to synchronise an Exchange mailbox with a mobile device.

Gmail vs Outlook: Storage and attachment limits

Gmail offers 15GB of storage for free but this counts across Gmail and Google Drive, However, users who choose to upgrade to Google One can expand their total storage space to 100GB or more.

Microsoft also offers free users 15GB of storage per Outlook account, though this can be increased to 50GB if you have an active Microsoft365 subscription on your account.

Outlook users looking to send large files by email might find themselves disappointed, as the service has a 20MB combined attachment limit. For anything larger than this, Microsoft recommends uploading the files to a cloud storage service such as OneDrive and then sharing the link to your files in the email instead.

Gmail also limits the size of attachments to 25MB in size. In addition, the Gmail app only allows you to upload one image at a time. The images are displayed as thumbnails, however, which allows you to check that you've sent the right files and see what you've received before you download it.

Gmail will also detect if you've mentioned attachments in the text of an email but not actually attached anything, and check if you've forgotten to include it before you hit send - which is a useful feature.

If one were to attempt to upload anything larger than 25MB, Gmail will automatically prompt you with an option to upload the file to your Google Drive and then attach the files as a shared drive link to your recipient. In this way, it can be considered a more seamless file-sharing experience than the stop-start route Microsoft has taken with Outlook.

Gmail vs Outlook: Extensions and integrations

Gmail

Being part of the Google Workspace, Gmail is tightly integrated with a range of productivity tools, making it incredibly useful as a workplace tool – beyond just an email app. This integration is also seamless, meaning you can open attachments and other media with tools like Google Docs and Google Sheets.

It’s because of this seamless experience that you’re able to work on files immediately inside Gmail before they are automatically saved to Google Drive – and because you don’t ever have to leave the Google ecosystem, you don’t need to worry about third-party applications potentially changing the file extensions of your documents.

Third-party applications are supported, however, and allow for integrations with various customer relationship management tools, as an example. There are a whole range of ISVs that have tools on Google’s Apps marketplace, which will all play nicely with Gmail.

This third-party integration even extends to social media platforms, and it’s possible to import your contacts and social network from these sites directly to Gmail’s address book.

Gmail’s built-in language tools are also a highlight. For those that encounter messages composed in languages other than English, Google Translate is on hand to quickly translate the contents of the message, with a single button. This is a simple function that is missing from Outlook.

Outlook

Outlook handles most of its extensions and integrations through its OneDrive and Microsoft 365 app family. Regardless of the platform or device you are using, Outlook’s integration experience is largely the same across the board.

Unfortunately, some of the add-ons don’t apply to specific kinds of devices or messages, but thankfully the extensions are supported in Outlook on the web in Office 365, Outlook 2013, and even in Outlook 2016 for Mac.

Despite this, you can easily access OneNote Online, PowerPoint, Excel, and Word through Outlook, as well as something called the Sway tool which helps users to put together multimedia stories and is highly acclaimed.

You can install an add-in by opening the Office Store from within Outlook, or by going to Microsoft AppSource.

Gmail vs Outlook: Spam, filters, and email management

Gmail’s spam filtering function works effectively. And while the occasional spam email does make its way through the filter, you can rest assured knowing that false positives are basically non-existent. Gmail is also useful for filtering out emails that you don’t want which aren’t categorised as spam.

Gmail does match ads with email content, which bothers some users, but these ads are usually filtered into the social or promotions tabs and don't interfere with inbox use. It also offers quite useful tools to prevent you accidentally deleting emails that you need.

Outlook's email and spam filtering is less sophisticated (much of it has to be done manually), but has some features that put it ahead of Gmail. One such feature is Sweep.

Sweep can be used to quickly delete unwanted emails in your inbox, and gives you options to automatically delete all incoming emails from a particular sender, to keep only the latest email, or to delete emails older than 10 days.

Is Gmail better than Outlook?

Both Gmail and Outlook are sophisticated email platforms that have gone through many years of refinement. As such, they are both impressive tools that are neatly integrated into their respective ecosystems. Therefore, this mostly a matter of user preference.

Neither service offers one standout feature that puts it ahead of the other, and both offer a somewhat similar user experience, albeit with a different menu structure.

Gmail’s search function may be slightly easier to use than Outlook’s, and we find Gmail’s user interface more appealing, but there isn’t anything here to justify switching. Both Outlook and Gmail are deeply integrated in their respective ecosystems, and so both will serve you well.

Google at 20: How a search engine changed the business world

Keumars Afifi-Sabet — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 05:30:00 +0000

AI, quantum computing, cloud, mobile, analytics, software, hardware, email, news... Google has done it all

Latest from ITPro in Workspace

Google Workspace is getting a Gemini makeover – but prices are going to increase

New pricing gives Google a competitive edge

Google Meet can now take notes so you don’t have to

Google Meet faces rival note-taking AI tools

How to access the new Google Meet features

Google’s Duet AI can now attend meetings so you don’t have to

Duet AI for Google Chat

AI collaboration tools

Google Workspace Review: A simple aesthetic with productivity in mind

Editor's note: Google Workspace review

Google Workspace review: Deployment

Google Workspace review: Pricing

Google Workspace Business review: User interface

Google Workspace Business review: Applications

Google Workspace Business review: Starter vs Standard vs Plus

Google Workspace review: Workspace vs Microsoft 365

Google Workspace Business review: Making your decision

Spanish spyware outfit uncovered, develops exploits for Windows, Chrome, and Firefox

25 Google Workspace tips and tricks for small business

1. Create a bespoke email address in Gmail

2. Utilize Google’s ‘Help me write’ tool in Gmail

3. Get your Google Calendar agenda direct to your inbox through Gmail

4. Receive a read receipt on emails sent through Gmail

5. Schedule send on Gmail

6. Save time typing

7. Mute conversations on Gmail

8. Create groups

9. Send meeting invitations with Google Calendar

10. Hide the guest list

11. Use multiple calendars on Google Calendar

12. Attach Google Docs to Google Calendar

13. Revise revisions on Google Docs

14. Hide your activity

15. Simple sign ups using Google Forms

16. Create Heatmaps

17. Open Microsoft files on Google Drive

18. Send large attachments

19. Create shared folders on Google Drive

20. Get staff usage data

21. Protect your data using Google Endpoint

22. Compile audit reports with Google Vault

23. Use staff social media with Spaces and Google Chat

24. Create Chat rooms in Google Chat

25. Use chat in Gmail

Summary

Android adds drag and drop features to tablet OS

Google adds new security vendor plugins for Chrome, improved Chrome OS policy controls for IT admins

Google Workspace update adds Meet calls to Docs and Sheets, chat threads to Spaces

Google patches second Chrome browser zero-day of 2022

Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook review: A confident convertible

Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 specifications

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Cheap and mostly cheerful

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Design

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Keyboard and trackpad

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Display

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Hardware and performance

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Ports and features

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 review: Verdict

Acer Chromebook Spin 513 Specifications

Google says Chrome is now faster than Safari on Apple Silicon

Google Chrome update fixes zero-day under active exploitation

Google introduces free Workspace plan for businesses without Gmail

Asus Chromebook CX9 (CX9400CE) review: The most stylish Chromebook on the market

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Design

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Keyboard & Trackpad

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Display

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Hardware & Performance

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Ports and Features

Asus Chromebook CX9 review: Verdict

Asus Chromebook CX9 Specifications

Chromebook shipments plunge due to 'shift in demand'

Asus Chromebook CX1 (CX1100CN) review: A cut-price compromise

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Design

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Keyboard and trackpad

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Display

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Hardware and performance

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Ports and features

Asus Chromebook CX1 review: Verdict

Asus Chromebook CX1 Specifications