Chrome Next Steps: Extension API
Posted by jonathan at 12:15pm EST on 03/26/2009
Chrome is an amazing browser and I’m very thankful that Google released it. It has helped set the standard much higher for browsers and for what is to come in future releases of all browsers. The primary component about Chrome that I love is how fast the JavaScript engine is. It’s amazingly fast.
But one major feature that is missing is extensions. That core feature is killing me. I can’t make Chrome what I want it to be.
Chrome developers realize this.
Chromium can’t be everything to all people. People use web browsers in a variety of environments and for a wide variety of jobs. Personal tastes and needs vary widely from one user to the next. The feature needs of one person often conflict directly with those of another. Further, one of the design goals of Chromium is to have a minimal light-weight user interface, which itself conflicts with adding lots of features.
User-created extensions have been proposed to solve these problems:
- The addition of features that have specific or limited appeal (“that would be great as an extension”).
- Users coming from other browsers who are used to certain extensions that they can’t live without.
- Bundling partners who would like to add features to Chromium specific to their bundle.
But, alas, when Chrome initially launched, there were no options to add extensions. It’s still being built.
As part of the Summer of Code program, Chrome has a few ideas for students to tackle. As of date today, here are all the latest ideas.
- Page Cycler generator
- Extensions
- Improve Printing
- Improve Chrome’s build infrastructure
- Help with Linux port
- Help with Mac port
- Improve BiDi support in WebKit and Chrome
- Additional HTML5 support
- Help with the network stack
- Improve the performance plots
There are some great ideas, but it does make me question something. How soon do they expect a Mac or Linux version to be available? But that’s a question for another post.
I’m quite disappointed about the speed of progress with Chrome. If you’re going to launch something for Windows only, then push off features, you’re going to lose traction with the target audience. Safari 4 came out which has a comparable JavaScript engine and plenty of already-existing features which people want. It’s Windows, Linux, and Mac comparable, which is already one-up on Chrome.
Chrome needs to hurry up and get these features out the door and onto our desktops.
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