Google plans Chrome extensions

04 Sep 2008 10:18

Mozilla's Firefox has an edge over Chrome as regards extensions that give the browser new abilities, but Google is planning to close the gap

One of Firefox's initial claims to fame was the fact that the browser could be extended with a multitude of plug-ins. Even though Microsoft caught up with Internet Explorer, Firefox still has an extension edge over Google's Chrome web browser.

"We don't have that in the beta today, but we definitely plan an extension API [application programming interface]," Sundar Pichai, Google vice president of product management, said at the Chrome launch event in Mountain View, California, on Tuesday. "It is one of the things we will get to next."

Firefox extensions enable a wide variety of features, from synchronising bookmarks to debugging website performance to showing detailed exposure data for online photographs. The extensibility has attracted a large number of programmers, too — something that is strategically important for most computing efforts.

However much Google might envy Firefox's extension assets, it is hard to imagine the search giant mustering much enthusiasm for one of the most popular Firefox extensions, Adblock Plus, which suppresses many advertisements.

Google has a strong focus on giving web users a good experience; indeed, the company has said its studies show that users find the text ads placed next to search results to be an overall improvement to the search experience.

However, Google's business depends on advertising, and its $3.1bn (£1.7bn) DoubleClick acquisition is geared to give the company strength in just the sort of online display advertisements that Adblock is designed to counteract.

Extensions are not to be confused with a related technology, plug-ins, which include software such as Sun's Java, Microsoft's Silverlight, and Adobe's Flash. Existing plug-ins work in Chrome, Pichai said.

Story URL: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39484275,00.htm