Google updates Chrome, adds extensions

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Google has added extensions to the PC version of its Chrome browser, as well as taken the bookmark sync system out of beta.

Writing in the Google Chrome blog, product manager Nick Baum described extensions as "little programs" that add functionality to your browser.

"Some provide you with alerts and notifications, others let you easily access your favorite web services from icons next to your address bar, and there are lots more," he noted.

Mozilla's Firefox has long had a wide collection of the add-ons, but Chrome is launching with 1,500 of the widgets, all created while the system was in beta and available in the extension gallery.

Extensions are available in beta for the Linux version of the browser, while Google promised to bring them and bookmark sync to the beta version of the Mac browser soon.

Bookmark sync

The update also brings bookmark sync out of beta, for the PC version at least.

"For those of you who use several computers - for example, a laptop at work and a desktop at home - you can now keep your Google Chrome bookmarks synchronized and up-to-date across computers, without needing to manually recreate your bookmarks every time you switch computers," Baum noted.

Other changes in the update include new HTML5-based APIs, and - as ever - Chrome is also a bit speedier. Baum claimed the browser was 40 per cent faster than the last version, and 400 per cent faster than the first release.

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