Google Chrome Adds Plugin Functionality

Google Chrome is slowly but surely inching closer and closer to becoming a serious Mozilla Firefox competitor.  In recent developer builds of the browser new APIs have been found to allow for true browser extensions (or add-ons).

In the latest developer releases of Chrome it offers some improved APIs and tools for developers who would like to start building Chrome extensions. Google has already released two of their own extensions which of course are Google based. One adds a Gmail notification system directly into the browser and one makes it easier to subscribe to RSS feeds using Google Reader.

Before you can use these extensions you must be using the “developer builds”.  To do this, you’ll need make sure you’re receiving updates from the Chrome developer channel.  If you haven’t already, download the Chrome Channel Changer and switch channels to “developer.”  Then, you will need to launch Chrome from the command line adding the –enable-extensions flag to the end of the application path.

While this is great news for those of us wondering if Google Chrome would ever support extensions – there is still quite a way to go before Google Chrome’s extension eco-system reaches the state of Firefox’s.  It will be an interesting next few months to see how well the Google Chrome extension eco-system flourishes (if it does at all, which I expect it will).

If you could see any Google Chrome extension what would it be?  I would like to see a number of my favorite Firefox extensions created for Chrome as well.  Some of the extensions I would like to see include, Forecast Fox (well, maybe it should be Forecast Chrome), Xmarks, Adblock Plus (am I dreaming too big?).