Google has been working on multiple profile support in Chrome since we last mentioned it. The latest Canary and Dev channel releases both have the new features, and it's come a long way, even if its still a little rough around the edges. More »

Your operating system can run processes in the background -- things like realtime antivirus protection and streaming movies and music around your home -- and so can Google Chrome. Background apps have existed in Chrome and Chromium for some time, but now that the Chrome Web Store is open and its apps are available for installation, Google has posted a blog about why backgrounding is cool.

It's really all about Chrome being your "OS" even if you're using a Windows or Mac computer. With the ability to run Web apps in the background and Native Client support headed to the beta and stable channels in relatively short order, Chrome Web Apps will soon be capable of doing many of the same things your traditional desktop apps can do.

Google's post talks about using backgrounding to issue notifications (as apps like TweetDeck and exfm do) or to prefetch data. There's really no end to the possibilities, and we're exited to see what the next generation of Chrome Web Apps can really do.

If there's one single thing that truly sets Chrome apart from its herd of rivals, it's the Omnibar. Chrome users already know and love this feature, but Google's just made it possible for developers to create extensions that will push it even farther ahead of the competition by providing an API for it. Now, there are already huge numbers of extensions available for Chrome -- many of which we here at Download Squad couldn't live without -- but none of them have thus far been able to make full use of the Omnibar.

As an example of how the API can be used, take a look at Switch to Tab, shown above. It allows users who leave ridiculous amounts of tabs open to use the Omnibar to search them all for the specific tab they need to find. It only shows up to 5 results right now, but the concept is pretty decent just the same -- and there's no telling what kind of goodies that devs will come up with now that they can treat a browser's address bar like a command line.

Google Chrome's dev channel has been bumped from 7.0.503.0 to 7.0.517.0. The update wasn't silky-smooth for me this time -- more on that later in this post. So what's new in Chrome dev?

For starters, there's been a lot of code cleanup, and there have also been some minor UI tweaks as well -- a few pixels rounded here and there on Mac, but nothing too noticeable. Google Chrome's remoting code has seen numerous updates and it looks as though the feature is just about ready for us to test. Right now, however, all you can see is a login window -- but you won't be able to login. My guess is that only Google's internal accounts will work at the moment.

Ahh, the thrill of running bleeding-edge software! It's not for the feint of heart, to be sure. Heck, it's not even for someone who has a perfectly strong heart but doesn't do well with watching features appear and disappear on a regular basis.

Take Chrome's nifty internal PDF plug-in. Just a few days ago, Google dropped the need for a command line switch to activate it, enabling it by default for users of the dev channel build. Today, however, another update was pushed and the plug-in has once again been switched off.

You can still enable the plug-in if you wish -- just visit chrome://plugins and click enable underneath the Chrome PDF Viewer.

It's likely that the Chrome team is just ironing out a few kinks prior to pushing the plug-in to the beta channel. With Chrome's accelerated release schedule, it probably won't be long before the PDF viewer joins the internal Flash plug-in on Chrome installs everywhere.

Ever find yourself wishing you could run two versions of Google Chrome -- like the stable version and the dev version -- side-by-side? It's been a tad tricky to do that in the past, but Google has just made things about as easy as they can possibly get -- by introducing another Chrome build.

Yes, Google is offering a Vista-esque four flavors of Chrome now -- with the release of Canary, a pseudo-dev channel build which installs to a different directory (%localappdata%\Google\Chrome SxS\ on Windows). Canary isn't linked to your Google Chrome installs at all, meaning you can also run different sync profiles, themes, and browser preferences.

Apart from the folder change, Googler Huan Ren states that Canary may also receive updates which the dev channel does not. Canary will be the most bleeding-edge official version of Chrome and somewhat of a mix between Chrome dev and the Chromium snapshot builds.

Canary's arrival has a lot to do with the new Chrome release cycle. With stable builds due out every six weeks, beta branching will occur more frequently and "risky" changes from the trunk can now be pushed to Canary prior to landing them on the Dev channel.

This also says a lot about Chrome's early adopters -- there's obviously a crapload of them if Google feels it can support two official, pre-beta builds. Download Google Chrome Canary here and run it in tandem with your current stable, beta, or dev build.

Wait a sec... "Why Canary?", you ask? I'm guessing this is a reference to the old practice of taking a canary down into a mine... If the canary died, it was unsafe and the miners knew to bail out. If a change kills Chrome Canary, they'll block it from the dev build.

Commenter Apps:

• Feedsquares by Qikon
• Grooveshark by Qikon
• MyFav.es by Qikon
• Pandora by Dave
• Yahoo Mail by pat_boy2008

The Google Apps, in case you had trouble with the

• GMail
• Google Calendar
• Google Docs

Bonus:

• Spark Chess and Trillian's web client are available from Owen Campbell-Moore: download here

To create your own app, here's what you do:

1. Find nice looking icons and make sure you have at least two sizes (24 and 128 pixesl)
2. Modify the manifest.json from one of my apps or one of the Google apps in your resources folder. If you're only creating two images, strip out the lines which reference the 32 and 48 pixel images.
3. Make sure you input the correct URL and change the name of your app.
4. Load it into Chrome via the load unpacked extension button

That's it. Simple, huh?

Chrome apps are capable of a lot more than pretty icons -- including things like running offline and notification support --but for now I'm happy with the eye candy.

Here's a (not-so-well-kept) secret: Google Chrome has been shipping a handful of extension/web apps for quite some time. They're hiding in a folder called resources -- which you'll find in your Chrome profile folder. On Windows, look in %localappdata%\Chromium\Application.0.428.0\Resources. Linux users can check in /opt/google/chrome/resources/.

Mac users, feel free to share the path in the comments! Scroll to the end to see the Mac version, contributed by Spenser Jones! Our thanks!!

Remember that path... you're going to need to browse to it three times (assuming you want to install all three apps).

Head to your Google Chrome extensions tab (chrome://extensions) and make sure you see the developer mode buttons above. If you don't, click the plus next to the text to reveal them.

Now click load unpacked extension... and drill down to the folder you located above.

Click into the folder of the app you want to install (like gmail_app), then click OK. If the install is successful, Chrome will refresh your Extensions page and you should now see the icon for the app.

Updates to the Google Chrome dev channel build tend to come fast and furious, and they don't always include noticeable changes. This time, however, there are a few noteworthy UI tweaks to go along with the usual assortment of bug fixes and security updates.

For starters, the unified menu we told you about early last month has now been turned on by default. The goal, of course, is to simplify Chrome's UI and increase the amount of space available for extension icons. Some Download Squad readers, however, seem to be less than thrilled with the change. Apart from requiring an extra click to access your extensions, the "create application shortcut" option has been removed.

Chrome Sync has received a lot of attention in this update, and now sports a new interface. As you can see, extension sync is also enabled by default now -- no more need for a pair of lengthy command line switches. Several improvements under the hood have drastically improved extension sync, and I haven't experienced any issues since updating.

The sync engine has also been tweaked to support encryption, and work continues on adding password sync to the mix. It's actually enabled by default in Chromium right now, though it doesn't appear to be active -- my Linux Chromium still prompts me for passwords I've saved on Windows. The feature seems to be nearly ready, though, so likely won't be much longer before you're able to flip the password switch in Chrome.

If you're using the dev channel, you've probably received the update already - click the wrench menu > about Chrome to check. Want to make the jump the Chrome's cutting-edge build? Download it here.

Worth noting: the unified menu does add an extra click to open your extensions tab, but you can also get there by right-clicking any extension icon and choosing manage extensions.

I'm certainly OK with that -- I don't actually use any non-Gallery extensions any more. If you are using some, well... At least you'll be able to sync most of your extensions automatically and Chrome won't crash on you.

Expect to see this one make the jump from Chromium snapshot builds to the Google Chrome dev channel rather quickly.

• enter chrome:plugins in your Omnibar
• scroll down to the entry for Chrome PDF Viewer
• click the enable link, and you're good to go.

As the official blog post mentions, it's a bit limited in terms of functionality at this point. No zoom options or navigation controls are presented yet, so you'll have to page down or scroll down to read. You can, however, search the text using control + F as you would on a web page.

My advice: give it a try, but stick to using the Google Docs Viewer for now.

We told you it was coming, and now it's here: Extension sync has landed in the Google Chrome dev channel build.

It's not enabled by default, so you won't see it in your sync options menu unless you activate the feature via a command line switch. --enable-sync-extensions turns it on (again, see our tutorial on using command line switches if you're not sure how to do this).

Today's dev channel release also brings the usual assortment of bug fixes and tweaks, but extension sync is by far the biggest news. Hit up about Chrome in your wrench menu to auto-update, or head over to the download page for Google Chrome's dev channel builds to take the expanded sync feature for a test drive.

Sebastian and I were chatting about Google Chrome earlier today when I mentioned something that I wanted to be able to do: pull up the new tabbed bookmarks manager when I open a new tab.

Now...I haven't coded a lick in more than a decade, but it looked like this would be easy enough to hack in via an extension. Seb agreed that it looked like a pretty trivial task, and he decided to give it a go. Thanks to an existing extension called New Tab Redirect, I had my fix about an hour later.

Redirect is already a solid extension, giving you the option to use most of Chrome's internal pages (file:// URLs and about: pages like downloads, history, and extensions). The dev channel's in-tab bookmark manager is (obviously) a fairly new addition to the browser, however, so it wasn't supported.

With a little bit of additonal code, Seb turned out the New Tab Redirect (mod) extension. It's now available for download from the Google Chrome Extensions Gallery and should work just fine with the dev channel build and Chromium snapshots. Now every time I click the plus sign to create a new tab, there are all my bookmarks... awesome!

Once the bookmark manager makes the jump to the beta and stable channels, those of you using less "experimental" versions will be able to use it as well! We'll keep you posted when that happens.

Google has released an update to Chrome's developer channel build, and the changelog is a lengthy one. Among the plethora of bugfixes and UI tweaks are some notable changes like the arrival of theme syncing, the departure of Windows 7's taskbar thumbnails, and several minor UI tweaks.

As predicted yesterday, the expanded sync options which landed in Chromium have made their way into the dev channel build. Theme sync wasn't even present in Chromium's preference menu as of yesterday afternoon, yet it snuck in to Chrome today.

That was also the case with support for Aero Peek, which was removed on April 5th. Those who want them back can simply add a command line switch (see the previous post), and thumbnails will likely reappear in Chrome once a satisfactory implementation can be engineered.

You may also have noticed that the bookmark star has been moved to the right-hand side of the Omnibox. Other minor tweaks to Chrome's interface have also been made, like the browser actions area resize grabber. Just about every other aspect of Chrome has received some updating, from the V8 JavaScript engine, to autofill, to its geolocation feature (which is now enabled by default).

Interested users can either update their current dev channel build via the wrench menu -> about Chrome and new users can download the build from Google's site.