Google Aug. 19 opened Chrome Web Store to developers in a preview, preparing for an October launch to the public.

Developers can upload apps, package them and install them in Chrome using the latest Chrome dev channel. They may also integrate Google's payments and user authentication technology.

Google May 19 introduced the Chrome Web Store at Google I/O to help developers put free and paid Chrome Web apps in front of consumers.

The store will enable the roughly 70 million users of the Google Chrome Web browser to not only find Web apps, but create shortcuts in Chrome to access them easier.

Google developers said at a gaming conference in Germany this week that Chrome Web Store would be open this October, with developers paying just a 5 percent processing fee on applications they build for the store.

This video explains why Google created the Chrome Webstore (no, it's not just for games):

Sure, the Web is changing with HTML5, browsers are getting better faster and all that jive. But this is tangential to the fact Apple is crushing with its App Store for the iPhone and iPad.

Google wants to attack the iPhone with Android and iPad with Android and Chrome Operating System. Chrome OS netbooks and tablets will only run Web apps -- there is no local storage, so Chrome Web store is the perfect complement for Chrome OS machines.

For the fresh preview, developers will only see the apps they upload and these apps will not be visible to other visitors of the gallery, said Chrome software engineer Michael Noth.

Noth added that when Chrome Web Store launches it will replace the current Chrome app gallery and will offer a new look for users to find apps, extensions and themes.

In preparation for that launch, the Chrome team also inserted security measures into the Chrome extensions gallery, including domain verification.

The company is charging a one-time signup fee of $5 "to create better safeguards against fraudulent extensions in the gallery and limit the activity of malicious developer accounts."

Developers who already registered with the gallery can update their extensions and publish new items without paying the fee.