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Filed under: Google, Open Source, Beta, Browsers

Chrome gets a real extension manager in dev channel build


While it's not quite as "pretty" as the add-on manager built in to Firefox, at least it's there. Yes, Google Chrome has a built-in extension manager - for those of you running the developer channel build.

To access the page, just head to the wrench menu or type chrome://extensions in the omnibar and hit enter. Chrome (or Chromium) will display a list of all your installed extensions (yes, LastPass an alpha out for testing and you can read about it here on Download Squad). Any extension can be disabled, uninstalled, or reloaded (presumably in the event one decides to crash like a Sea King helicopter).

It's definitely nice to see a full-featured extension interface appear in Chrome. Now all we have to do is wait for developers to port over some of our favorite Firefox add-ons - or create some killer new ones.

Filed under: Google, Beta, Browsers

Bookmark sync now available in Google Chrome dev channel

Less than a week ago, I spotted the early stages of bookmark sync in the Chromium nightly builds and source. Tonight, Google pushed the functionality in a new update to the dev channel for Google Chrome.

If you're running it already, just head to the wrench menu and click about. Once Chrome checks for and finds the update, install it and you're ready to sync. You'll still need to append --enable-sync to your shortcut for the option to appear when you restart. Once you sign in with your Google account, Chrome will keep syncing unless you go to your Personal Stuff options and tell it to take five.

Don't check your Google Bookmarks for your links. They'll actually be synced to a folder in your Google Docs unsurprisingly labeled Google Chrome.

Run a sync from a second (or third or seventeenth) computer and Chrome will prompt you to merge and sync or cancel. It's a nice step, since it gives you time to clean up your bookmarks before committing them to your Google docs store.

Since the Chrome dev page is still pushing v 3.0.198.1 for Linux, you won't be able to use sync just yet. The updated build is likely not far behind (if you've got it working in your distro, please tell us in the comments - I had no luck with Chrome or with Chromium via Launchpad).

For those of you who want to make the switch to the dev channel now to give sync a try, you can download it from this Google page or use the Chrome Channel Changer to switch the build the built-in updater checks.

Filed under: Google, Open Source, Beta, Browsers

Early stages of sync functionality appear in Chrome nightly (gallery)

Announced just over a week ago, Google is working on resurrecting Browser Sync in Google Chrome. With the recent development jump to v4, it seems a good bet that sync will be an integral part of the next major release of the speedy browser.

In the most recent nightly builds, the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together. Looking through the Chrome command line switches, I noticed the following lines:
   // Enable syncing bookmarks to a Google Account. const wchar_t kEnableSync[] = L"enable-sync"; 
Like any good dev channel tester would, I immediately appended the switch to my Chrome 4.0.202.0 shortcut and launched the browser again. With sync enabled, there is a new entry in the wrench menu as well as on the Personal Stuff tab of the options screen.

Don't get too excited when you press the buttons. Like Marvin the Martian learned after Bugs stole his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator there won't be any Earth-shattering kaboom. For now, we can look. We'll have to wait for Google to flip the switch to see syncing in action.

Check the gallery after the break for screenshots, including early designs for the login and merge/sync pages!

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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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