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Native Client - Gaming in Chrome

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Okay so I struggled for a decent title on this one...

Native Client is a newish plugin for Chrome developed by Google to give native performance to applications that are built against it to run in the Google Chrome Browser. You can find all sorts of games and apps in the Chrome Web Store.

To better quote google themselves;
QuoteNative Client is an open-source technology that allows you to build web applications that seamlessly execute native compiled code inside the browser. This Google Code project is for maintaining the Native Client implementation, including compiler and browser support. If you're writing a compiler, are interested in porting Native Client to a new browser, or are researching the security mechanisms underlying Native Client, you can find useful resources in this project.


I had a chance to sit down and test it today and it actually works really really well (even on my laptop using Ironhide because I have a dual graphics chip).

I tested out a game our friend Ubuntu Vibes tried called Bastion which has beautiful graphics, I couldn't get a screenshot as using the screenshot button pauses the game and then I end up getting a shot of the pause menu oops so here's a video;
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You can find out how to enable it over at the Ubuntu Vibes article on it but here is a cut down summary;
Download Google Chrome (Doesn't work in Chromium)
Open a tab and put in chrome://flags
Click Enable on the Native Client section
Then restart.
(For errors and more info visit the ubuntu vibes article) Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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8 comments

Bumadar Dec 19, 2011
i know this is about games, but can it be exploited by websites to get much more control of a system? as the application has more system access via chrome?
Liam Dawe Dec 19, 2011
From what I read no not really, they it's all sandboxed - as in it shouldn't be able to break out of itself at all.
Hamish Dec 19, 2011
The feeling I get from this is it is basically a standardized implementation for games that want to be like Quake Live rather than your standard Flash or Java creation, e.g actually run from the users system rather than on-server.
Liam Dawe Dec 19, 2011
I think it works in a similair way i think yes.
Hamish Dec 19, 2011
Well, one things for certain: Shockwave has just been made obsolete. And since Adobe never made a native port, good riddance then. :P
Liam Dawe Dec 19, 2011
Well only Chrome has native client.

Since it is open source though maybe firefox would be willing to pick it up.
Bumadar Dec 20, 2011
and chrome is available for every platform so even if a game requirment is chrome only its a none issue
Bestia Dec 28, 2011
The Chrome version of Bastion is currently on sale for $4,99 (after all of these special prices on Steam).
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