In the days when there was no Chrome from Google, Safari or even Opera in the browser arena Internet Explorer used to have almost 90% share of the web traffic. Netscape navigator used to be common then. Now things have changed a lot, IE is down to 62 % and Safari has a share of 4.46% of the total web traffic. Chrome however, has beaten Safari at its turf by getting an impressive 4.63% of the traffic. While this might not be much in terms of traffic but it certainly speaks of Chrome’s popularity since it was released just 16 months back. With these stats Chrome is the world’s third most used browser,  and the way it is gaining ground the time is not far when it might even beat the heavyweights and we know who they are .

It’s a Google Google world, that’s for sure. The Google Chrome browser has some very good extensions lined up for users. The various categories are Alerts and Updates, Appearance and Functioning, language & Translators, Music, Videos and Photos, Tabs etc etc. The basic purpose is very similar to that of add-ons in Firefox, making certain required actions easier by making them a one click effort.

In order to use these extensions one will have to upgrade to the Google Chrome 3.6b or maybe to some other Beta, depending on the type of extension you want to install. This shouldn’t be a problem, just download and start using. However, you will be asked if you want to participate in a survey which will notify each time your browser crashes. Adding an extension is as simple as downloading and installing it, again a one click process. After it is done you will see a small icon of the extension in the top right corner adjacent to the address bar. Extensions that do not shop up can be viewed/accessed from the “Extensions” in the Tools menu. Some of the extensions are really good and promise to make our lives easier. The selected ones are posted below, do try them out.

Custom Colors. For those of you who are tired of watching the same colors scroll by in the Google browser try this extension out. It will give the Chrome a new look and feel. This makes your browsing experience good and the change is definitely worth the effort. Link Custom Colors.

The official Chrome OS is still to be released, some say next year, so what all choices do we have? Wait for a year or just wait? well not for long the since folks at Dell have tinkered with the OS and have produced a hacked version of the OS (8 GB in all) which can be loaded in to a Flash disk for trying out Live, but in a Dell Mini 10v. This certainly comes as a surprise because just recently Google declared the project Open Source and the trend certainly has caught on rather fast.

The hacked version is available for download and instructions are also available online for users to follow. To do this one has to own a Dell Mini 10v though. So Mini 10v owners are the blessed ones or people who can afford and are dying to try out Chrome can buy to take the plunge. After downloading the image one will have to load the image on to a 8 GB thumb drive and reboot via the USB for previewing Google Chrome.

The OS boots up in under 12 seconds and is known to work well. Driver support may vary according to the model but since this hack is exclusively for the Mini 10v so owners of these machines will find no glitches hopefully except for the Wi-Fi which is known to show hiccups during operation. Anyways it won’t hurt to try out the OS on any machine just to experience its looks and response minus the depleted driver support.

The OS that is attracting wide attention the world over is going Open source. Just recently Google announced plans of releasing its code at Chromium. So if you want to contribute in any way just visit Chromium and sign up. The OS will be released sometime next year and promises revolutionary features as compared to today’s operating systems.

First of all it is going to be fast, in fact much faster then present day operating systems. Secondly, there is no installing apps, most of the things are web based. This will also ensure data security and integrity, hence being more secure. It is also going to be easy to use! what about Windows is it difficult? Or how much easier? Let us wait and see. An API will make it easier to modify code and/or develop new apps. There’s support for multitasking, ability to play on Flash based games, initially that is. And off course users will be able to connect to external devices (what about drivers?)

So primarily it will be for NetBooks, more info is available at the Google Blog.

Sometime back it was Symbian OS which gave users the flexibility of installing hundreds of thousands of applications, then iPhone overshadowed everything by making available thousands of applications at the Apple website, now its Android’s turn. The Google based OS for smart phones that is poised to take the world by storm has an equally impressive number of applications lined up for its loyal followers. Some of the most wanted are described here in not so fine detail. The applications/games introduced here have been selected after much surfing and browsing.

• Wapedia. Originally developed by Taptu Limited the application makes it possible for users to access Wikipedia contents on their Android based phones. The application is fast in accessing content even on 2G Networks. This is a must have utility for Wikipedia fans. Its features included news items, image rendering, auto-complete feature for article titles, support for multiple languages and links to alternative wikis.

Are you a concerned world citizen and want to see how the Global Warming is going to effect the world and especially your country in future, tap into the new Google Earth Plug-in ”Google Earth climate change 3D”. This plug-in loads new layers on top of Google Earth maps displaying the range of expected temperature and precipitation changes under different global emission scenario, possible throughout the century. This tools generates prediction of results for such scenarios for next 90 years based on the data provided by internal governmental Panel on Climate Change.

Push email is very important for people who are always on the go and want to access their email whenever, whenever they are. In past this service has been available on Blackberry and Microsoft Exchange platforms, but now good news for Google Apps fans. Google announced that from today Google Apps offering complete mobile sync solution which supports Push email for iPhone and Windows mobile for FREE, since Google Sync is free for all Google Apps customers which is part of Google Apps.  Google Sync is offering push email, contacts and calendar across the major corporate devices and smart phones such iPhone, Windows mobile devices, Blackberry and Android based phones and syncs them on the fly. There is also a mobile web based interface which allows access to entire inbox and all conversations in a rich user interface.

How to setup Google Sync Push email feature:

Google Sync feature can be enabled by domain administrators in the US English version of the administrative control panel using their mobile device using simple steps. Read more about Google Sync here.Google Apps also provides Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server read more at Google Apps mobile access page.

Visit and register for Google Apps today and get Push notifications and Google Sync.

Via Google Enterprise Blog