The developer’s version of the Google Chrome Web browser was updated this week to include the ability to sync your extensions. The new feature joins Chrome’s other sync options, in place for some time (Bookmarks, Preferences and Themes), to more fully round out the browser’s synchronization platform. Sponsor How to Enable Sync To enable extension sync in Chrome, you’ll first need to install the current developer’s build . Once installed, you’ll then need to edit the Chrome shortcut’s properties. In Windows, you right-click on the shortcut, choose “Properties,” and in the “Target” box, add – enable-sync-extenstions at the end of the command, to the right of the quotes. Mac OS X users will need to use Terminal or this handy script that does the work for you (Pointed out to us courtesy of LifeHacker .) Sync: For a Browser that Knows You The great thing about Chrome’s synchronization options is how it allows you to create a standardized experience no matter what computer you’re using. Whether on the netbook in the living room, the desktop in the den or your notebook at the office, you can install Chrome and immediately have it set up with your personal preferences. For this former Firefox user, the addition of extension sync has been one of the more highly anticipated options, second only to bookmark sync. There was a time – not too long ago, mind you – when you had to make manual lists of your installed extensions or use some sort of third-party add-on to back them up every time Firefox released a new version. And believe me, that process was not as simple as it sounds. With Chrome, though, the transition from version to version is seamless. There’s no backup needed. Forget iterative Web apps , Chrome is the iterative Web browser. Although the current version of extension sync is still in testing – and apparently a bit crash-prone reports CNET – it’s only a matter of time before the feature is stabilized and ported to the beta channel, followed by the public release. As for what’s next for Chrome sync, could it be the ability to sync browser history, searches and cookies? Passwords? Auto-complete settings? We would imagine that it’s all of the above…maybe not soon but definitely not never . Discuss

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As Google Docs rolls out the updates we wrote about in April, Microsoft Office 2010 is hogging the limelight. And just last week Microsoft released Office Web Apps . It may seem like Microsoft is encroaching on Google’s territory, but Google doesn’t have much territory to defend. Sponsor According to Forrester , only 4% of U.S. online consumers use Google Docs. “In terms of usage and penetration, Google Docs remains a failure,” wrote JP Gownder for Forrester. Office Web Apps won’t kill Google Docs; Google Docs was never really alive to begin with. Google’s hopes seem to lay in converting enterprises to their offerings as awareness and demand for cloud-based solutions increases. But Microsoft is taking the cloud very seriously. The company’s hiring 500 sales people just to push the cloud. And it has what appears to be an impenetrable lead in the office software market. But Google Docs still leads Office Web Apps in features, and if Google can patch some of its weaknesses and exploit some of Microsoft’s, it still stands a chance to make a respectable showing in the enterprise. Offline Access Google dropped Google Gears support last month, and hasn’t announced when its new HTML5 based offline solution will be released. As nice as having access to documents in the cloud is, having access to mission-critical documents when your Internet connection is down or you’re in a wireless dead-zone is even better. Sure, there have been third-party apps to sync your files, and you can export and save them to your computer. But a seamless offline Google experience would be even better. By creating a Google-approved syncing solution, the partnership with Memeo to create the Gdrive is a step in this direction. Memeo Connect will sync Google Docs with a documents on a user’s local computer, but they’ll still need to fire up Microsoft Office or Open Office to edit them offline. However, it puts Google Docs into the position of being a reasonable competitor to Office Web Apps, even for Office 2010 users. Mobile Editing Office Web Apps documents can be accessed from mobile devices, but they’re read-only. Google’s been offering limited editing in Google Docs for some time now. Microsoft will doubtlessly incorporate Web Apps editing through Windows Mobile 7, and possibly other devices, so Google needs to expand its lead in this area. Pricing Danny Sulivan writes that he might skip this version of Office because Microsoft isn’t offering an upgrade discount. The lack of upgrade pricing is effectively a price-hike. It’s one thing to ask a company to keep paying for something they’ve always paid for. It’s another to ask them to start paying more . Google should take advantage of this. Collaboration The most significant improvement in the Google Docs update is the Wave-like real-time collaborative editing feature. Although Office Web Apps already has some collaborative editing functionality, it’s severely crippled in that users can’t actually see each others edit in real-time. It’s not clear just how great an advantage this will be, but Google should milk it for all it’s worth. Google Chrome Microsoft maintains its marketshare in part by bundling Office with consumer PCs. Google Chrome could introduce a number of customers to Google Docs if netbooks, tablets or even desktops powered by the OS take off. Portable Chrome devices with offline access to Google Docs and GDrive syncing could compliment desktops running Office – a first step towards supplanting Office completely. Of course, offering complete Chrome and Google Apps solutions for enterprise desktops as well as portable devices would be far more interesting. We’ve speculated that Google might be planning to market Chrome to the enterprise in the past. Discuss

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Google will release its Chrome OS – initially to just laptop users – in Q4 InfoWorld reported today. This announcement comes on the heels of rumors that Google is ditching Windows internally. Some are speculating that Google is making room for Chrome OS in its workplace, and may be aiming to compete with Windows in the enterprise. Sponsor The Financial Times reported yesterday – citing unnamed Google employees – that Google is offering new employees the choice of using Macintosh or Linux computers, but not Windows. It quoted an employee who said that getting a Windows computer now requires CIO approval. The employee cited security concerns following the cyber attack on Google last year . Microsoft responded to the The Financial Times story via its Windows team blog , citing many the company’s many security improvements in recent years. The Financial Times also quoted an employee who suggests the move is an attempt to make room for internal use of the forthcoming Chrome OS. InfoWorld ran a story consulting several security experts who believe security is not the motivator for Google’s move away from Windows. In a follow-up, InfoWorld quotes Andrew Storms, the director of security operations at nCircle Security , as suggests that Google’s move away from Windows is a PR stunt. Storms points out that as Google continues its move to the cloud – Google uses Google Docs and Microsoft Office internally – it doesn’t need a traditional desktop operating system and the associated costs: licensing, virus protection, etc. Global CIO blogger Bob Evans recently drew attention to the fact that 5,000 IBM workers use Macs, and to IBM CIO Pat Toole’s position that enterprises should move away from standardized computing in favor of letting individual users pick what works best for them. As enterprises rely more and more on browser-based services, the underlying operating system matters less and less. Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie recently reiterated that services will play a growing role in the company’s future, so even if enterprises ditch Windows for Chrome or other OSes, Microsoft will likely remain a player. Microsoft has its own minimal, browser-based operating system called Gazelle in the works. Chrome screenshot via Wikipedia . Discuss

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Extensions for Google Chrome can now send out desktop notifications. Google just announced the availability of a notifications API for Chrome extension developers. Until now, only websites were able to deliver non-model messages with the notifications API, which was first introduced in Chrome 4 for Windows. Now, extension developers will be able to make use of the desktop notifications API to deliver notifications that appear outside of the browser window as well. Sponsor One of the first extensions to make use of these system-wide notifications is the popular Gmail Notifier add-on for Chrome. After installing the extension, you will receive a notification whenever a new email arrives in your inbox. The advantage of this system is that you will see this notification, even if you are not looking at your browser. Some users will surely complain that OSX and Linux already have perfectly good system-wide notifications systems . This new notifications API, however, allows developers to create their extensions without having to think about the desktop platform and Google’s own developers won’t have to interface with multiple third-party desktop notifications platforms either. Chances are that we will see a variation of these desktop notifications in Google’s Chrome OS as well. Discuss

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Facebook is holding a press conference this morning where the company’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will discuss Facebook’s progress in bringing enhanced and simpler privacy controls to the popular social networking service. Since Facebook’s last round of updates, the company has come under growing pressure to safeguard its users’ privacy and offer simplified privacy settings. Earlier this week, Zuckerberg acknowledged that the company has “made a bunch of mistakes” lately and we expect Facebook to announce how it plans to regain its users’ trust today. Sponsor Note : As an experiment, we will use Google Wave to live blog this call. We recommend you use Google Chrome or a recent version of Firefox or Safari to follow along. For now, this Wave is read-only. We plan to open it up for comments after the event is over. The press conference is scheduled to start around 10:30am PT (1:30pm ET). Discuss

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