Chrome extensions? Developers' wish is Google's command

Support for extensions to customise Chrome, the number one requested feature for Google's browser, has started to arrive for developers.

Previously, extensions worked only for those who enabled the feature with a command line switch. Now the feature is enabled by default in the developer preview version of Chrome on Windows, Aaron Boodman, the Google engineer who oversees the extensions work, said in a blog post on Wednesday.

"We're ready for a few more people to start using extensions - the kind of adventurous people who populate the dev channel," said Boodman, who earlier in his career developed the Greasemonkey tool that permitted extensive customisation of Firefox.

Work is already under way for some popular extensions, including Yahoo!'s Delicious for social bookmarking and Xmarks for bookmark synchronisation.

Extensions are enabled by default only for Chrome's Windows users right now. "We've also enlisted some help to get extensions up to speed on Mac and Linux," Boodman said.

The extension-programming interfaces have been changing, and more changes are coming to the user interface. Those who want to start developing extensions should look at the new Chrome extension documentation.

Chrome extensions are written with the same programming technologies as are used for web pages themselves - HTML, CSS and the like. Mozilla has a related extension effort called Jetpack under way for Firefox.

Original article: Chrome extensions arriving in developer version from CNET News.com