Cookieless domains are (as the name suggests) are domains, in which the user will not send cookies (Which can add quite a few kilobytes to a request). For example, say I want a user to load a static image it would be silly of them to also send me the cookie data. Luckily they are super easy to set up.

Set up a sub-domain

Firstly, set up a subdomain on your website. For example static.yourdomain.com would be suitable, but it’s really up to you. Now point the domain to a path where you will keep your static files (Such as images and CSS files). For Full On Design, I set up http://files.fullondesign.co.uk/.

Stop cookies being set site wide

Next, make sure your website does not set website wide cookies. The fastest way to do this is by amending the .htaccess file and adding a CookieDomain Directive. For example:

CookieDomain www.fullondesign.co.uk

Alternatively in PHP’s setcookie() function, I could just use something like:

<?php
setcookie("TestCookie", 'Some Value', time()+3600, "/", "www.fullondesign.co.uk", 1);
?>

The key point to note is that the domain parameter is set to www.fullondesign.co.uk, not .fullondesign.co.uk. Thus the cookies will only be sent when the subdomain is www.fullondesign.co.uk.

Now start linking up to files in that directory and your pretty much done.

Setting up cookieless domains in WordPress

WordPress has a few neat built in functions to make this process easier. If you use wordpress pop the following code (just before the “That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.” comment) into your config.php file (amend as required):

define('COOKIE_DOMAIN', 'www.fullondesign.co.uk');

You can also change the uploads URL of your WordPress install to point to your cookieless domain. In the config.php file add the following(amend as required).:

define('WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://files.fullondesign.co.uk');

Useful Resources

I’ve barely touched on the topic of cookieless domains aside from just saying “They making your website load faster”, here a two website which go a little more in depth.

• Google: Minimize request overhead
• Ravelrumba: Serving Static Content from a Cookieless Domain

Some of the key changes are:

• The icon no longer takes up real estate next to the URL bar.
• Smarter URL shortening i.e. if the URL is shorter or about the same length as the shortened URL it will not bother shortening it.
• It’s faster! I adjusted the speed a little and now it’s a little more suitable for fast typing users.
• Support for goo.gl.
• Caching was also added, which makes tweeting URL’s multiple times faster.

You can try it via its Google Chrome Extension website.

Crazy Right? Well it’s all down to a new V8 JavaScript rendering engine, which boasts an improvement of 35%.

That’s great! What does it mean for Web Development?

Hopefully this new engine will inspire other browser programmers how to render JavaScript faster, which in 3-6 months should mean the average user experience (the 35% of users who  upgrade their browser when updates are released) should be improved.

However, this does not mean we can use create complex JavaScript websites (Such as Facebook) render quickly, instead it means subtle usability improvements to a web page should be more effective.

Note: Is anyone interested in trying to recreate this but showing other browsers loading?

How it works

Google Chrome Frame seems quite easy to support, all the web developer needs to do is add the following code into the head of the web page they want to run like Google Chrome Frame:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">

If the user has Google Chrome Frame installed the page will render like Chrome, if not the page will load as normal.

First Impressions

When I first saw this product I had two concerns:

• If a user knows they need a better browsing experience, they should upgrade to a better browser. Wouldn’t this just delay the uptake of better browsers?
• If a user can’t upgrade to a better browser (Due to corporate restrictions, low bandwidth or lack of information) the odds they will be not be allowed to install Google Chrome Frame. Which makes me wonder how many people will actually benefit from it?

Having said that the product also has its positive points, for example if a company has a network based on IE6 they may find that upgrading to another browser could cause their system to fail. Google Chrome Frame allows them to keep the old software while still work on more advanced browser bases developments, without breaking their network.

I can’t decide whether this product is beneficial for the development of the web, or if it’s just giving users another reason not to upgrade from Internet Explorer 6.

What do you think? Does Google Chrome Frame encourage users to not upgrade, or does it make web developers lives easier? Leave your views in the comment section below.

View Video On YouTube

Key Features

• HTML 5 – Essentially this means more people will be able to support markup such as the video tag and footer tag, which makes the internet a more indefinable place. We can also stop using those annoying < object> tags to play flash videos (Which normally causes invalid code).
• TraceMonkey JavaScript Engine – This makes our JavaScript run faster, which means we can use jQuery less sparingly.
• Geo-Location – We can easily localize our users experience.
• More CSS Features – Mainly the ability to download fonts, which gives us more freedom with typography.

If you want to read in a bit more detail the new features of Mozilla FireFox 3.5, take a look at Firefox 3.5 for developers.

Youtube – What is a Browser?

Browser wise, webmaster have been encouraged by Google to inform their IE6 users about the alternative browser available and the disadvantages of IE6. The effect this has had on IE6 users is debatable, but overall IE6 is slowly disappearing.

Browser Statistics

Biggest Rise: IE8 (+2.13%)

Biggest Fall: IE7 (-1.86%), closely followed by IE6 (-1.22%). IE7 and IE6 large drop in market share is mostly due to IE8 being released (so users are upgrading or switching).

Next month I expect IE8′s market share to increase as more IE7 users should start upgrading. IE6 should continue decreasing as a constant rate.

OS Statistics

Biggest Rise: Vista (+0.54%)
Biggest Fall: WinXP (-0.77%), lots of WinXP users are converting to Vista, Win7, Linux and Mac. However, WinXP is still a market leader.

Apple have recently started another “Windows Sucks” campaign, which criticizes Windows poor security which will affect the growth of Vista and WinXP. I’m expecting a 0.4% increase in Mac’s on the market as a direct affect of this campaign.

Linux may be the underdog next month however; as recent user generated advertisement (the best kind of advertisement) has been very positive, mostly putting empathises on Linux’s Security and Performance. I expect a 0.5% growth.

IE6 Death Date

Over the past few months I’ve been tracking the decline in IE6 market share. On average its current decrease is 0.9% a month, which works out about 0.02% a day. At its current rate, it should reach 0% market share on 13th October 2010 at around 9:36am.

Essentially this means that IE8 is now available over windows automatic update and should slowly (over the next few weeks) start replacing most IE6 and IE7 installs.

IE8 has been released, but unfortunately will not be a high priority until around the 20th April 2009.

Biggest Rise: Safari (3.09%)
Biggest Fall: Other (-2.82%)

OS Statistics

WinXP is still very dominant, but is losing ground to Vista and other OS’s.

Biggest Rise: Vista (0.31%)
Biggest Fall: WinXP (-0.39%)

Internet Penetration

Latin America/Caribbean and North America had the same increase in Internet Penetration in March 2009. Could the gradual increase in Internet Penetration be a sign that the recession is soon to subside?

Internet Usage

Internet Usage stayed relatively constant in relation the previous month, even though there was an increase in internet penetration.