Latest Chromium builds for Mac OS X support Chrome Extensions | Hacker News Reader

Latest Chromium builds for Mac OS X support Chrome Extensions

build.chromium.org

15 pointstlrobinson17 comments

Chromium Mac builds have supported extensions for a couple of months :)

I wrote an extension using Chromium on a Mac http://github.com/tumult/jdic-chrome

It's in need of updating to take advantage of NPAPI (to reduce its giant memory footprint) and the new preferences page feature. Hopefully I'll get find some time to work on it before too long.

Oh, I guess I assumed they didn't since the official Chrome betas don't yet.

They took extensions away from Chromium for a few days and re-enabled them a bit ago.

I'm using it right now, and I was so impressed that it is now my default browser (replacing Safari).

Extensions I'm currently using are: Gmail notifier, Feedly, Goo.gl shortener, Google Translate, and Facebook. All work well, and they don't seem to be slowing down the browser during normal operations.

The biggest extensions that's still missing is 1password and that's probably the only reason google chrome is not yet my default browser.

Same here as well.

Unrelated - I've been using 1Password for about 2 months and am realizing my biggest concern is coming true.. that I'm relying on 1P so much that I'm forgetting all of my passwords. Have you run into this issue?

Yes. I've been using 1P for over a year now and 80% of my passwords were generated by the password generator. They are impossible to remember. The other 20% are passwords for web-based apps that I access on other computers from time to time.

Call me ignorant but what are some of the features in 1password that Keychain doesn't offer?

I was rather skeptical of 1Password as well, but wound up checking it out after receiving it as part of a MacHeist bundle. It's since easily become my favorite Mac utility (tied with LaunchBar). A few notable features, rambled off in no particular order:

- great integration into (nearly) every Mac browser (Firefox in particular does not use the Mac keychain; Opera and Chrome are the two exceptions, and they're working on both as soon as extension support is available)

- built-in cross-platform HTML/JS password viewer (for instance, keep your 1Password keychain file on Dropbox and pop open the viewer on Windows to pull up a password; it uses AES for encryption and a JSON-based data store in a standard OS X package/folder)

- better in-browser password management (save after your login is confirmed, save multiple logins, replace a login)

- in-browser password generation (it also has options even beyond the Keychain utility's excellent generator)

- slick GUI app for managing passwords, secure notes, serial numbers, etc. (Keychain Access is a bit... odd in how it displays Web logins)

- cross-browser and well-implemented auto-fill (it supports credit-card auto-fill as well, which is encrypted just like everything else)

- go-and-fill one-click site login (sort of like launchbar/quicksilver, but inside Safari for accounts and websites)

- syncs to iPhone app over local Wi-Fi

- Very prompt updates and support (beta releases every few days, usually a same-day turnaround if a Safari/OS X update breaks something... the way they handled Snow Leopard's early release was rather brilliant also)

Even though I got it for dirt-cheap, I feel it would be easily worth the full purchase price, and had no qualms about upgrading to 3.0.

This build supports the LastPass password manager. It works well enough.

I've been a 1Password user for a year as well, and am totally dependent on having a password manager... Last time I tried LastPass for Mac-Chrome it didn't work.

Worth noting that I sent an email to the 1Password developers and they told me they had no interest/plans in building support for Chrome on the Mac at this point.

Last I heard, they were waiting for extension support in mainstream Mac Chrome betas: http://www.switchersblog.com/2009/12/chrome-support-is-comin...

EDIT: They also have a workaround using a bookmarklet you can use right now: http://www.switchersblog.com/2009/12/tip-one-way-to-get-1pas...

Cool, it was no longer possible to live without an ad blocker for me. Not that I hate advertising so much, but the CPU usage (and battery life) was disastrous with all this flash ads around.

I know this sounds small and I'm likely nitpicking, but the one thing that bothers me a bit in chromium is that the entire page "flashes" white for a second while it is loading a page. It seems that when you click on a link it "blanks" the page real quick, then loads. There's no doubt it is fast - but this "flash" on every click is annoying. Am I the only one that sees this? I don't see this in Safari, and I thought they were both based on the same rendering engine.

I use a plugin called no-script in firefox - is there any news on when it will be available for Chrome? I will hang on to firefox until I can decide what js to burn my cpu cycles on, thank you.

I don't think there is and I don't think there will be. There are limitations with what you can do with Chrome extension, which is why in its current form, extensions like noScript and ABplus (the one that works) and Firebug (not firebuglite) is not possible in chrome. They intentionally did that so that extensions don't hamper browser performance. Unlike Firefox, your chrome browser doesn't get slower with more extensions. Their performance is actually the same.

Another thing to think about, is that one of the biggest selling point with Chrome is it's ability of render scripts faster. If you are going to use an extension like noscript, whats the point of using Chrome? Might as well stick with Firefox.

You don't need Firebug in Chrome, fyi.

The built-in developer tools are WebKit's, which have been far better than Firebug for about the last year now.

LastPass works. That means I finally can have a working password in Chrome Mac.

Yay!

Good bye Safari!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com