Chrome Corner - weekly updates, extensions, themes, and tips for Google Chrome

Welcome to February 2010, and welcome to another installment of Chrome Corner! There's plenty of action to cover this week, so let's not waste any time!

Chrome OS to feature touch capabilities?

Of course it is.

I mean, can you imagine anyone developing a sexy, new OS for any electronic device at this point and not including some touch elements?

What the blogosphere (TechRadar had the scoop, and Mashable et al went giddy) is in a twitter about is the deer-in-headlights routine by Google's search lead Anders Sandholm -- who didn't know how to tactfully respond to a reporter's question without giving something away.

Instead, he looked to a PR teammate for help and sputtered, "I can't... I mean... right now we are targeting netbooks, that's what we're focused on, but I expect it to work well... we expect it to target everything up to desktop computers." TechRadar refers to Sandholm's response as the "strongest hint yet" regarding touch.

My vote for strongest hint: Google isn't run by complete idiots.

Oh, and there's also this documentation over at the Chromium Developer site which details UI possibilities for a touch tablet. A Google tablet device is coming -- probably from HTC (the same folks who built the Nexus One) -- and that thing would look pretty silly running a touch-stupid OS.

Data Privacy Day reminder: there are less Google-y versions of Chrome you can run
Just because you want Chrome's speed, and access to the all goodies in the Extensions Gallery, doesn't mean you need to provide extra metrics about your browsing to the Big G. They have plenty of other ways to keep tabs on what you're up to, after all.

If you'd prefer to keep as much to yourself as possible, you may want to look into SRWare Iron, ChromePlus, ad Comodo Dragon. All three are privacy-enhanced and built upon the open source Chromium code.

Fresh Start keeps your tabs in sync across multiple computers
To keep my Firefox installs running in step on my home and work systems I use Weave (which recently hit the big 1.0). What about Google Chrome? I use the built-in bookmark sync and LastPass for my passwords, but I've been missing Weave's ability to sync the tabs I have open.

Fortunately, there's an extension which has stepped up to the plate. Fresh Start taps into Chrome's bookmark sync to use it for session storage. Hit the button, save your tabs, and re-open them later on a different machine.

This extension will be a great way for you to jump back and forth between your desktop OS and Chrome OS -- on that sleek new smartbook Google is hoping you're going to buy...


Chrome 4 goes primetime, Chrome 5 hits the dev channel!
With Google moving Chrome 4 from beta to stable, the general public now has access to the Extensions Gallery, bookmark sync, improved security features, and better speed -- which testers have been enjoying for quite a while.

Testers, in the meantime, can now make the jump to Chrome 5 which appeared last week on the dev channel. Before you shout "version jumpers!" at Google again, have a look at their versioning logic as posted by commenter MxxCon:

Google changes major version number when there are significant comparability changes will happen to the core, for example when Google will make some change to its html engine or javascript engine.
Chrome versions pre 1.0 had V8 javascript engine 0.3 but changed Webkit versions.
Chrome version 2.x changed both Webkit and v8 engine
Chrome version 3.x changed both Webkit and v8 engine
Chrome version 4.x changed v8 engine
Chrome version 5 now has v8 engine 2.0 and will probably change Webkit as well.

They are not changing versions just for the hell of it. They have documentation explaining their logic behind major, minor and build version changes.

What's that smell? It's the Farty Extension for Chrome!
Remember, I'd never actively encourage anyone to sabotage a co-worker's computer... but if you did want to have some fun, Farty is a stupid-yet-awesome desktop prank.

Drop the extension into someone's Google Chrome and wait five minutes for the hilarity to ensue. Just remember to pick a victim who has speakers, otherwise the effect is kind of lost.

Tags: browser, chrome, chrome corner, ChromeCorner, chromium, google, web