Google saying buh-bye to Chrome Apps for Windows, Mac, Linux

#Google has touted its #Chrome browser as all you need for desktop computing on any operating system. But the search giant said in a blog post Friday that it will gradually be phasing out the browser's apps for Windows, #Mac and #Linux machines. The apps range from photo-editing program #Pixlr Touch Up to games like a now-discontinued version of Angry Birds. You download them from the Chrome Web Store, launch them from the Chrome browser and they open in a separate window, as if they were a program installed on your hard drive. Didn't know these apps were a feature of Chrome? You're not alone. Google said in its post that few people who use Chrome on Mac, Windows and Linux machines also use the apps.
http://www.cnet.com/news/google-saying-buh-bye-to-chrome-apps-for-windows-mac-linux/

Google is working to safeguard Chrome from quantum computers

#Google is working on safeguarding #Chrome against the potential threat of quantum computers, the company announced today. It's doing so by implementing post-quantum cryptography in an experimental version of the browser. While there exist hardware defenses against the vastly superior computing power of quantum machines, Google is using a new so-called post-quantum key-exchange algorithm. This software, called the #NewHope algorithm, is enabled in Chrome Canary, a kind of testing ground for new browser technology, on only a small number of connections between the browser and Google servers. Although quantum computers of this variety are only small and experimental at this stage, Google is taking precautions for the worst case scenario. "While they will, no doubt, be of huge benefit in some areas of study, some of the problems that they [ #quantumcomputers ] are effective at solving are the ones that we use to secure digital communications," writes Matt Braithwaite, a Google software engineer, in a blog post. "Specifically, if large quantum computers can be built then they may be able to break the asymmetric cryptographic primitives that are currently used in TLS, the security protocol behind HTTPS." In other words, quantum computers could undermine the security of the entire internet.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/7/12120280/google-chrome-canary-quantum-computing-encryption-new-hope