Google Chrome is adding a performance overlay to help web devs build faster websites

When Google launches Chrome 90 later this year, the browser will feature an optional new overlay that will provide developers with vital stats for how a website is performing.

Chrome’s new Performance Heads-Up Display (HUD) was detailed by Google Engineering Manager Addy Osmani (via AndroidPolice). The new overlay, which will become part of Chrome DevTools, will provide developers with both Core Web Vitals and smoothness metrics. Once the HUD is enabled, it will be persistent and display on each tag.

The new performance overlay arrives following Google’s launch of Web Vitals, an initiative that aims to provide “unified guidance for quality signals that are essential to delivering a great user experience on the web.”

Here’s what we said about Core Web Vitals back in May of 2020:

Core Web Vitals are a subset of all the Web Vitals that apply to all web pages, should be measured by all website owners, and will be surfaced across all Google tools. Currently, these Core Web Vitals focus on three aspects of the user experience — loading, interactivity, and visual stability — and include the following metrics (and their respective thresholds):

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
• First Input Delay (FID): measures interactivity. To provide a good user experience, pages should have a FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): measures visual stability. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1

It’s in a developer’s best interest to create a website with an experience that’s fast and smooth. That’s because Google will rank websites based on “page experience” beginning May 2021. Google started labeling websites as meeting Core Web Vitals metrics in August of last year, telling users in Chrome 85 whether a link led to a “fast page.”

According to Osmani, the HUD is still being polished, so things like stability and performance will come with time. You can head over to crbug.com under the Internals > GPU > Metrics component to try the HUG out for yourself.

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Signal adds custom wallpapers and animated stickers to catch up to WhatsApp

Signal enjoyed an unexpected uptick in users following WhatsApp’s recent privacy blunder. In an effort to capitalize on its rising popularity, Signal has started testing features that make the messaging platform feel a little friendlier.

Earlier this month, Signal announced a handful of new features that would be coming to the platform, including chat wallpapers and animated stickers. As promised, these two features are now available in the beta version of the app, making it feel more like WhatsApp than ever before.

Android Police got its hands on both new features, sharing screenshots of what chat wallpapers look like. You can change your chat wallpaper in Signal by going to Settings > Appearance > Chat wallpaper. You can also change the wallpaper of an individual chat by tapping the person’s name in the top bar and looking for the chat wallpaper option.

There are a total of 21 chat wallpapers to choose from, including 12 solid colors and 9 gradient colors. Android Police said you can also choose a photo from your phone’s camera roll for extra personalization. Before, Signal featured only white and black backgrounds depending on if dark mode was enabled on your device.

Android Police also provides a quick preview of Signal’s new animated stickers—something the platform has dabbled in in the past. There’s a new Day by Day sticker pack that contains 24 animated stickers to help liven up your conversation. The art is by Miguel Angel Camprubí.

Finally, Signal appears to be adding a simple About section for users’ profiles. Users will have the opportunity to choose and emoji and also add a short description about themselves. It’s a simple way to share some of your personality before even having a conversation. Apparently, Signal users can save several blurbs and switch between them on the fly, essentially making them status updates.

If you’re on iOS, Signal said it also plans to add media auto-download settings and full-screen profile photos, the latter of which is already available on Android.

These new additions to Signal appear to be in the beta version of the app for now. Hopefully, testing goes smoothly so they can be added to the stable build. Once that rolls out, we’ll be sure to let you know.

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Google Search gets a big redesign on mobile that focuses on simplicity

Google on Friday introduced what it’s calling a “major visual redesign” of the mobile Google Search experience, which the search giant said will be available in the coming days. The theme of this update? Simplicity.

“We wanted to take a step back to simplify a bit so people could find what they’re looking for faster and more easily,” said Aileen Cheng, a Google designer who led the overhaul. Cheng called the new design a “breath of fresh air.”

One of the first things Cheng wanted to do was simplify Google Search and get people the information they were looking for. That meant presenting search results as clearly and quickly as possible. One way Google did this was by using larger, bolder text, and also using Google’s own font, which is already used in Android and Gmail. The results and section titles are bigger as well.

“Bringing consistency to when and how we use fonts in Search was important too, which also helps people parse information more efficiently,” Cheng explained.

The new Google Search results also spans edge-to-edge, while Google has gotten rid of shadows. This makes it easier for you to spot the result you’re looking for, providing visual space and breathing room. Google is also using color to highlight what’s important. By displaying results on a clean background, Google can use color to guide users to information.

Finally, the company said that users will notice Google Search is now “bubblier and bouncier.” That means rounded icons and imagery, which Cheng said is already a big part of Google’s DNA. Just look at the Search bar or the magnifying glass.

“Rethinking the visual design for something like Search is really complex,” Cheng said. “That’s especially true given how much Google Search has evolved. We’re not just organizing the web’s information, but all the world’s information. We started with organizing web pages, but now there’s so much diversity in the types of content and information we have to help make sense of.”

Google (Free, Google Play) →

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Xbox Live Gold memberships are increasing in price, so stock up before then!

It always sucks when subscription services go up in price. It’s sort of a natural part of inflation, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant. The latest service to get a price increase will be Xbox Live Gold, also known as ‘the one that’s not Xbox Game Pass’ (which you should look into by the way, as Game Pass Ultimate should include Xbox Cloud Gaming). The price increase hasn’t happened yet, though, so now is your time to stock up on the service so that you won’t be paying more later!

The change for Xbox Live Gold was announced by Microsoft earlier this morning, and on paper, it doesn’t seem too bad, with the monthly subscription going up by $1 and the three-month subscription going up $5. Of course, you’ll see that the math doesn’t quite add up there, and the price increase for multiple months of Gold only gets worse from there. Six months of Live Gold currently is $40, but it’ll be increased to $60, which is also the equivalent for a year of PlayStation Plus.

It’s a bit strange, but many see this as Microsoft making the price increase an incentive for users to switch to Xbox Game Pass, which offers more features at what will soon be a similar price. This is backed up in Microsoft’s announcement itself, stating that Xbox Live Gold time can be directly upgraded to Game Pass Ultimate time, up to 36 months.

Basically, it’s time to stock up! First, if you’re not already an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate user, you’ll want to sign up for three months for a dollar. Then, pick up some Xbox Live Gold time cards from Amazon. Finally, convert those months into months of Game Pass Ultimate, and you’re ultimately (ha) saved on the superior service!

For reference, currently, 12 months of Xbox Live Gold is $60, and it will convert to 12 months of Game Pass Ultimate. Just three months of Game Pass Ultimate is $45, so… yeah, that’s quite a bit of savings! Since that yearly price will effectively double soon, it’s best to just stock up on Live Gold before then, even if you’re not planning on converting it over to Game Pass Ultimate.

Xbox Live Gold (12 months)

A year of Gold will effectively be doubling soon, so get your subscription before that happens!

Buy at Amazon

Xbox Live Gold (6 months)

6 months of Gold will be increasing to $60 soon. Grab some at the current price before it's too late!

Buy at Amazon

Xbox Live Gold (3 months)

Three months of Gold will be going up by $5 soon. Grab some time before it's too late!

Buy at Amazon

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Samsung Internet 13.2 adds redirect protection, URL quick access, and better dark mode

Update 1 (01/22/2021 @ 04:10 PM ET): Samsung Internet 13.2 is now rolling out on the stable channel. Click here for more information. The article, as published on December 16, 2020, is preserved below.

After rolling out stable Samsung Internet 13.0 earlier this month, Samsung is now back again with a fresh beta of its popular browser, just in time for the holiday season. The new Samsung Internet 13.2 Beta debuts several nifty features to further improve the overall browsing experience, including the added protection against redirects, OS Settings integration, ARCore upgrade, and more.

One of the major improvements in the Samsung Internet 13.2 is Smart Protect, which warns users when a site tries to persuade users to download malware and shows a warning pop up to help them return safely back to the homepage.

The new beta now also makes it easier to quickly visit URLs stored in your clipboard. When you tap on the address bar, you will see a quick access menu that shows your copied URL, and you can simply click on it to visit that URL — without needing to hit the Go button.

Next up, the Samsung Internet 13.2 lets you quickly search for various in-app settings right from within the main Settings app. You don’t have to open the app and work your way through a myriad of menus to find that specific control or setting. For example, if you want to disable cookies, simply enter the keyword in the Settings search bar, and it will show you a shortcut to jump directly to the Cookies settings.

A recent ARCore update had broken the AR functionality in the Samsung Internet. The Samsung Internet 13.2 has fixed that issue, and AR experiences should now work as intended after updating to this version. Finally, this update also brings several improvements to the Dark mode, including the introduction of the prefers-color-scheme media query and the color-scheme meta-tag CSS property to give web developers control over how their sites look when the user has the dark mode enabled. Similar to Google Chrome, Samsung Internet now also lets users toggle a force dark mode called “Force Dark Behaviour” as an experimental feature under internet://flags.

Samsung Internet Browser Beta (Free, Google Play) →

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Update 1: Samsung Internet 13.2 Stable Release Now Available

If you’re using the stable version of Samsung Internet, you can now download version 13.2 which includes the aforementioned features. If you haven’t yet received the update, you can sideload the release from APKMirror.

Samsung Internet Browser (Free, Google Play) →

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[Update: ZenFone 7 Fix Rolling Out] Some ROG Phone 3 and ZenFone 7 owners are having issues with HD playback in Netflix

Update 1 (01/22/2021 @ 04:00 PM ET): ASUS is rolling out an update to the ZenFone 7 series that allegedly addresses the Widevine downgrade issue. Click here for more information. The article as published on December 30, 2020, is preserved below.

Some owners of the ASUS ROG Phone 3 and ZenFone 7/7 Pro have discovered that their devices have lost Widevine L1 status. As a result, they’re unable to play Netflix content in HD.

Users have taken to ASUS’ forums to voice their complaints. Seems the issue has persisted over several weeks now with no signs of going away.

Widevine is a DRM technology used by many streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to ensure that these services are being used by devices with unmodified and secure firmware. Without Widevine L1 status, users are unable to stream videos from Netflix above 540p quality. Unfortunately, due to a bug in the SoC firmware of the ROG Phone 3 and ZenFone 7 (both are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865), the Widevine DRM level is being downgraded from L1 to L3 for a handful of users. The only way to fix this, according to ASUS, is for the affected users to ship their devices to ASUS so they can re-provision them.

ASUS released a statement regarding the issue: “Asus is aware of this issue which affect a small number of users and is caused by a bug from our SOC vendor Qualcomm,” ASUS said. “If this has happened we urge you to contact Asus customer service in your region.”

Some users in the forums have stated that after getting their phone fixed, the issue has reared its head again. “I have this issue happened to me after that service center resolved my issue but the issue happened to me AGAIN today,” user yashpandya295 said in the ASUS forums. “So I have to visit service center again.”

For what it’s worth, we checked our ROG Phone 3 and ZenFone 7 review units and our Widevine level hasn’t been downgraded. To check your own Widevine DRM level, download the DRM Info app.

ROG Phone 3 Forums ||| ASUS ZenFone 7 Forums

DRM Info (Free, Google Play) →

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Update 1: Potential Fix for ASUS ZenFone 7

After informing us that the only way to resolve the Widevine downgrade issue was to ship your device to a service center, ASUS is now rolling out an update to the ZenFone 7 series that allegedly fixes the issue. Software version 29.14.53.23 is rolling out globally with the following release notes:

1. Updated Android security patch to 2021-01-05
2. Improved touch stability
3. Enabled Volte on Telia (LT)
4. Fixed Widevine downgrade to L3 issue

Since we aren’t facing the issue on our own units, we can’t confirm if the update resolves the problem for the affected units. However, since the issue was allegedly caused by a bug in Qualcomm’s firmware, it’s not unreasonable to think that it can be fixed by a software update. We haven’t spotted a similar update roll out for the ROG Phone 3 just yet, but once it does, we’ll let you know. If your ZenFone 7 had its Widevine level downgrade to L3 and this update bumped it back up to L1 for you, let us know in the comments below!

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Inspired by The Queen’s Gambit? Learn to play chess with up to 92% off these courses

Looking back at 2020, there was one bright spark: watching The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. This historical drama kept millions gripped by games of chess. If you would like to follow in the footsteps of Beth Harmon, here are four great courses for learning to play.

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With 32 hours of beginner-friendly training, this bundle can help you master the fundamentals of chess. You learn from international-standard players, as you walk through beginning moves and game strategies.

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If you have played chess before but want to improve your game, this bundle can help. It includes 37 hours of training on decision making, pawn structures, and more from three world-renowned masters.

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The Complete Chess Bundle for Beginners to Advanced Players

Bringing together all the courses into one huge collection, the bundle provides a complete education in chess. You get 121 hours of coaching from grandmasters and international masters, helping you go from complete beginner to competitive player.

Get The Complete Chess Bundle for Beginners to Advanced Players for $99.99 (reg. $1,376), a saving of 92%. 

Prices subject to change 

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