David Flynn16 May 2009, 2:34 PM
The latest beta release of Google’s open source Web browser introduces support for third-party extensions.
Add-ons, plug-ins, extensions or extras. No matter what you call them, they’ve become as much a part of the modern Web browser as tabs. Now Google’s own browser is set to add them to the menu.
The latest ‘preview release’ of Chrome 2.0 – a developer build stamped 2.0.180.0 and released earlier this week – introduces the framework necessary to support third-party extensions.
Google is encouraging developers to begin tinkering with the code and building their own add-ins with the aim of having as many extensions as possible ready for when Chrome 2.0 makes its official debut: or, in Google parlance, migrates from the developer preview track to the beta track and is finally folded into the stable build.
Sample extensions created by Google, visible at the browser's bottom left corner, check Gmail (above) and
add a site's RSS feed to Google reader (below)
Extensions are presently displayed in Chrome’s toolbar strip at the foot of the browser window, using an HTML-based UI element which Google calls a Toolstrip.
A few
sample extensions are already available, among them an add-in to display how many emails are in your Gmail inbox and the means to subscribe to a page’s RSS feed in Google Reader.