Chrome extension support evolves in new Dev build

At last, Google's web browser has support for actual extensions, not just userscripts wrapped in a container. The current developer build of Chrome (and the nightly builds of Chromium) can now install extensions that modify parts of the browser interface.

One great feature that you'll notice immediately: unlike Firefox addons, Chrome doesn't require a restart to activate extensions. Managing them after the fact? That must be done in Explorer for now - there's no manager in Chrome yet. To get started, you'll need to launch Chrome/Chromium with the --enable-extensions switch.

You can see extensions in action with Google's samples. While the arrival of more complete support is exciting, the demos provided are anything but. One is a gmail unread message display, one is a "subscribe in reader" button - neither of which you need if you have a GMail tab open and a Reader bookmarklet. The third example is a bt more interesting, displaying the status of the Chrome Buildbot.

Lack of excitement aside, it's a good sign for users that have been waiting for developers to begin porting their favorite Firefox extensions to Chrome. We will, no doubt, start seeing more .crx in the wild now.

Tags: chromium, freeware, google-chrome, opensource