| How Did Google Chrome Change the Browser Game Forever? (And is the same thing happening to our Desktop Design Apps?) Do you remember when Internet Explorer and Firefox dominated the browser market? Major browser releases were rare, very news-worthy events – like Olympic Games. Firefox 1.0 debuted in 2004, but V2.0 didn't arrive until 2006. It was late 2008 before we saw Firefox 3.0. Microsoft was even slower. Internet Explorer versions out-lasted presidencies. But in 2008, Google Chrome changed all that forever. Google took a new approach: If we expect the web to grow and evolve every day, our browsers need to be evolving just as quickly. From the start, Chrome updates came monthly – sometimes even weekly. But it also wasn't a big deal either as it all happened in the background. Sometimes your browser looked different than last time – but it was usually better. Eventually, the other browser makers learned this skill too. Firefox released version 54 in June. Today, everyone simply accepts that web browsers aren't static appliances – like televisions or toasters. Like us, our browsers grow a tiny bit every day. Is the Same Thing Happening to Our Design Software? Our design software – Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator – has typically followed that older model. Big downloads every 2 or 3 years – with little significant change in-between. Sure, you might pay a subscription, but it still all gets delivered in a big, chunking download. But Chrome is at again. In the last two years, we've seen the emergence of Chrome-based applications that live somewhere between the web server and the browser – apps like Figma, Pingendo, and Designer.io (formerly know as Gravit.io). And – as was the case with Chrome – they evolve quickly and constantly. What's perhaps more surprising is how polished and responsive they are. Designer.io  Designer.io is a slick Illustrator competitor with excellent drawing tools and a refined UI. They released version 3.2 in June and it runs equally well in the browser or as a standalone app. Figma.io  I've talked about Figma before – it's a great UI design app – but a new version landed this week that takes things to a new level. Figma 2.0 now offers a full prototyping facility as well developer hand-off function displaying CSS properties and values. Six Chrome Extensions But if you're not quite ready to switch to a fully-featured Chrome App, there are some great browser extensions. Today, we're going to look at design things you can do without leaving Chrome. James has the latest edition of our favorite Chrome Extensions for designers. The Chrome Extension ecosystem continues to bloom. Goodbye, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu... On another note, we have some rather important news to share with you. We're going to be putting our fortnightly design newsletter on indefinite hiatus for a while. At SitePoint, we'll be continuing – and further developing – Versioning, our popular daily newsletter that has a full run-down of all important news, articles, products, and services for web people, including plenty of coverage of Design & UX. Check it out – it's great. If you'd rather a newsletter that focuses on Design & UX exclusively, and you're somehow not already a subscriber, we can recommend the consistently excellent eWebDesign newsletter, which goes out weekly and includes freebies and giveaways alongside the best-curated design news. Of course, this isn't the end for us. We'll both actually have even more time to create weird and wonderful content for SitePoint. Just not all up in your inbox. Bye for now, Alex Walker,
Daniel Schwarz,
Design & UX Co-Editors | 
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