Starting today, all builds in Google Chrome's dev channel will have extension support enabled by default—meaning Chrome is one step closer to the kind of extensibility that keeps Firefox die-hards from switching.

Not that extensions is the only thing that keeps users loyal to Firefox, but from what we've heard around the water cooler, that is the case for a lot of folks frustrated with Firefox memory bloat.

Google pushed out some sample extensions a while back (most notably the previously mentioned Gmail Checker), but now users no longer need to add that pesky --extensions-enabled switch to the end of their Chrome shortcut in order to get extensions working.

We've given it a try on the latest Windows and Mac builds, but so far it only seems to be working on the Windows build. Hopefully this means we'll start seeing more—and better—extensions very soon. If you're not already on the dev channel, head to this page and download the installer for the dev channel (or just click here).