Google Chrome: If you're a Chrome user that uses the Pomodoro Technique to get things done, you'll definitely want to grab this handy little Pomodoro timer for the Chrome toolbar. Unfamiliar with the Pomodoro Technique? Read on for more details.

We shared the Pomodoro Technique, the brainchild of Francesco Cirillo, with you back in October. While Cirillo has a free e-book on his techniques the basic framework is:

1. Choose a task to be accomplished
2. Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)
3. Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
4. Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)
5. Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break

Chromodoro is a small Google Chrome extension that puts a little Pomodoro tomato in the toolbar. Clicking the icon starts the timer and when the time is up a break reminder pops up. The default settings are 25 minutes of work/5 minute breaks, but you can tweak the times in the options menu to suit your work situation and needs.

Among the many bug fixes and changes in the latest developer build for Macs is a little tucked-away trackpad gesture. Hold the CMD key and swipe with three fingers left or right, and you'll open a new tab with the page found going back or forward. There's also crude bookmark and cookie managers in this release, so it's definitely worth getting, if you haven't already grabbed it for the extension support. [CNET]

Chrome only: Extension FastestFox adds a bunch of new options to Google Chrome to search multiple sites, add related links, and turn text URLs into clickable links.

Once installed, you'll see a new icon in the toolbar that allows you to turn each feature on or off—including a new search box that allows you to easily submit your query to another service, hover search buttons when you select text, related links on Wikipedia, and turning text links into clickable links.

Once you've done a search, you can scroll to the bottom of the page, and FastestFox will load the next page below the current one on demand, so instead of clicking through every Google result, you can just keep scrolling. It's a useful extension that might be worth a look, especially if you spend a lot of time doing research. FastestFox is a free download, works wherever Google Chrome extensions do.

Shortly after Google Chrome's Extensions gallery opened, we rounded up 18 worthy downloads. Now that Chrome's official add-on market has matured a bit, we've dug up more productive, annoyance-fixing, feature-adding extensions that you should consider adding to your collection.

At this point, extensions for Google Chrome work on the Beta and Dev channels for Windows, the Beta for Linux, or the dev channel for Macs. If an extension doesn't work across all platforms, we've noted it at the front of each description.

Windows: With all the action happening on the Dev channel of Google Chrome, the Beta can feel a little left behind. Google remedies that a bit with a beta channel update for Windows that adds international language support to extensions, fixes some twitchy behavior by item-selecting extensions, and makes quite a few other fixes. Want to upgrade to the Beta channel? Grab it here. [Google Chrome Releases]

I haven't yet been able to boot the new version in VirtualBox, however, so you may want to stick to Cherry for now if you're planning to test drive Chromium OS in a virtual machine. You can still download Cherry via bittorrent.

Hexxeh releases Chromium OS Zero originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:58:00 EST.

The Dev channel has been updated to 4.0.288.1 for Linux, Mac, and Windows

• [r33999] Fixed an issue which caused html5 audio/video content to not load. (Issue: 25859)
• [r34122] Fixed a bug where content scripts would get run twice in some cases. (Issue: 29644)

Windows

• See all platforms

Mac

• IMPORTANT: Use this build to switch back to the Dev channel. If you were running Chrome Dev builds before you must manually install this build to get back on the Dev channel. Previous 4.0.249.x builds are on the Beta channel and will not auto update to new Dev channel releases.
• Extensions are enabled
• Bookmark sync is enabled. Please note issue 31015 below.
• [r34585] Add Learn more link to "Aw Snap" crash page. (Issue: 27212)
• [r34942] Add Esc as another keyboard shortcut for "stop page load." (Issue: 20916)
• [r34757] Don't show location bar in devtools and other popup windows. (Issues: 13148, 20244, 26757, 29103)
• [r34762] Implement "Pin Tab" tab context menu item

• Scrollbars in GTK theme mode now use some of the GTK colors.
  
• [r34915] Fix a hang on many sites using custom fonts. (Issue: 29861)
  
• [r34222] OOM killer should now kill runaway tabs before it kills the browser. (Issue: 29752)
• [r34234] Accelerator tweaks: in particular, GTK-configured Emacs keybindings in web content should now work. (Issues: 26131, 26054, 28839, 24479)
• [r35390] New optimized drawing path -- please let us know about any new drawing glitches! (Issue: 31301)
• Many bugs fixed particularly around extension handling.

• Issue 31015 [OS-MAC] Crash on adding new folder when bookmarks sync is enabled