A firefox guy from long time, I recently moved to Google Chrome. Reasons like faster load time and boot time made my decision to choose this as a primary browser. Chrome Browser supports plugins to enhance functionalities in a browser as well as provide a user ease to get updates. Here are top 5 browser plugins for Chrome as per my list :

1. ESPN Cricinfo

Shows you the latest cricket news, features and live scores from cricinfo.com

2. Facebook Notifications

Notification Detector for the new facebook. New notification icon changeS to red as per notifying for new messages and friend requests.

3. Hotmail Checker

Hotmail Notification! Displays the number of unread messages in your Windows Live Hotmail inbox.

4. RSS Subscription Extension (by Google)

This extension auto-detects RSS feeds on the page you are reading and upon finding one will display an RSS icon in the Omnibox, allowing you to click on it to preview the feed content and subscribe.

5. Twitter Notifier 

Twitter Notifier for Chrome brings new tweet notifications to your desktop! It uses Twitter’s streaming API – meaning tweets, DMs and @replies all appear instantly – faster than most desktop clients!

Do share your favorite one here amongst these. And if you have some other extension to share, we would love to hear about it.

                          

The Task Manager also has an option to End Process which allows to Kill the Current Processes running on Google Chrome. Also included in taskbar some stats for Nerds .

Get the task manager in Google Chrome by :

1. Right Clicked on Browser’s Bar and select Task Manager from there. OR

2. Press Shift + Escape key combo to get the popup.

This may prove very useful when Chrome is soggy and unresponsive or very slow.Enter the Command about:memory in Chrome’s Address bar and hit Enter!

Just Point Your Mouse Pointer Next to Tab and Right Click to Discover this Menu List

                          

A few days ago Google updated their chrome version to stable 4.0 to version 5 beta.The noticeable change is the java script performance which is getting the results very fast, making it a must have browser for websites with javascript functionalities (which includes their own set of products Orkut, Gmail etc).

Download : Google Chrome 5 Beta and Dev build

For information about alpha and developer builds, check out the Chrome dev channel here.

                          

The source code by self you can check out instructions at Chromium OS blog.

Also softwares like Virtual Box or VMWare can be used to run an already compiled Chrome image installed in a VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk).

After downloading the already compiled image To run Chrome OS,

1. Open VMware Player and create a new Virtual Machine using the Wizard.

2. Give the location of vmdk image downloaded from above link.

3. Select the OS as Linux and version as Other Linux 2.6.x kernel & Name it Chrome.

4. Specify disk storage capacity around 8 GB. You may use it as much as you can depending on how much you require and how much you have.

5. Set the hardware requirements and make sure RAM is Set to min 512 MB.

6. Finish the Wizard and start the Virtual Machine which would boot into Chrome OS.

7. Enter your gmail id & password to enter into Chrome OS

8. Here it is , all applications in Chrome browser.

Links:

Chrome OS Compiled Image

Chrome OS Video

Chromium Blog

                          

Users can install and uninstall them quickly without restart, and extensions have a great polished look that fits in with Google Chrome’s minimalist aesthetic. When developers upload an extension it is available to users immediately, with limited restrictions and manual reviews only in a few situations.

Extensions are currently available on Google Chrome Beta for Windows and Linux, and on the Dev channel build for Mac.

Get Chrome Extensions here : https://chrome.google.com/extensions

                          

First Official Screenshot of Google Chromium OS.

Google Chrome OS has a lot to do with the Chrome Browser that is all the data that user created will be stored in the cloud which includes any file made by you as small as text file which you can access it in your Google Doc. The entire system is web-based and runs in the Chrome browser which you may say as a huge web browser. All apps are web apps.

Web apps are launched from a persistent apps panel, which includes Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and background apps like Google Talk can be minimized to “panels” that dock to the bottom of the screen. Local storage is just used to speed up the system.The boot time on a netbook is around 7 seconds and Google saying its just a preview, there is lot more to come.

Google Official Blog Further mentions “The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs. Since all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn’t trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code. If your system has been compromised, it is designed to fix itself with a reboot.”

Chrome OS won’t run with standard hard drives, just SSDs, but Google is supporting both x86 and ARM CPUs. That also means you won’t be able to just download Chrome OS and go, you’ll have to buy a Chrome OS device approved by Google.

Chromium OS Website Chromium.org

Download Source Code : Chromium Source Code

Some screen shots of Chrome OS:

Apps Panel for Chromium OS which include Web Apps like Youtube, Picassa & others

All web Apps would just work as an App Tab in the browser. Chrome OS just looks like Chrome browser.

Google has definitely moved into next generation of computing i.e. Cloud Computing with their Chromium OS but the hardware limitation would still go as negative for it.The whole concept sounds very promising to me, infact its kind of one which i perceivedwhen i used Google Apps for first time few years ago.

                          

While the Windows 7 Beta & RC were being tried by public and there was a buzz around about Windows 7 , Google announced the launch of their OS Google Chrome OS to create another buzz.And the launch would definitely affect Windows 7.The Linux-based Google Chrome OS will be generally available to customers worldwide in H2 2010, but it would have not windows 7 RTM but Windows 7 Service Pack against it at that time to neutralize the launch its affect against Windows 7.

According to an article from softpedia “Microsoft General Manager Charles Songhurst revealed confidence in Windows 7’s quality and inherent ability to hold its ground against Chrome OS, Google will have to do a lot more than simply offer a new, cheaper, Linux flavor, rebranded as Chrome OS.He pointed out that the only way that Chrome OS would represent a threat to Windows 7 was if it was sensibly better than the latest iteration of the Windows client.

The Windows 7 RTM would be available for public from October 22nd, 2009. And it would take approximately one year for the first service pack for a Windows client release.Therefore in the end of 2011 around Q4 of 2010 or at max Q1 of 2011 we can see SP1 for Windows 7. With SP1, Windows 7 will have a number of advantages over Chrome OS, it would provide an edge over the Google Chrome OS including the maturity of the platform, client-side software support and hardware compatibility.

                          

Google has launched version 3.0 for its popular web browser Chrome.There had been around 51 developer milestones, 21 Beta releases, 15 stable updates and 3,505 bugfixes before Google finalized version 3.0 as its latest stable release. The updated browser boasts a 150% increase in javascript performance since the launch of version 1 which came a little more than an year ago.Following new features updates can be seen in this latest build of Google Web browser Chrome

• Redesigned  "new tab" page
• 150% increase in Javascript performance
• An improved omnibox
• Themes capability &
• HTML5 features

Since Google has released Chrome it has taken a 2.8% market share with a tough competition from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer,Mozilla Firefox Google Chrome 3.0 can be downloaded from here Download: Chrome 3.0