Chrome Web Store – Made of surprising awesome

NOTE: As I have moved my blog from elsewhere, this is simply a re-post and hence this was originally dated May 19th, 2011

Perhaps I have been living in a cave the last few months but it is only now I have truly discovered the Google Chrome Web Store. Opening up a new tab in my “Chromium” browser (yes that’s right) where I’m usually accustomed to just seeing and accessing my bookmarks (the interactive New Tab page if you like), I finally noticed the Web Store app icon! How I have missed it all this time I do not know.

It’s not like I’ve never heard of the Web Store however, but like many new “gadgety” type things these days I just didn’t take it too seriously; I assumed it was merely full of gimmicky apps I’d never bothered with.

And perhaps a lot of the things you’ll find on the store could be classed as gimmicky, but there is also a surprising amount of awesome stuff there too. The obvious and most popular addition is of course Rovio’s Angry Birds. If you don’t know about that game I’ll have to assume you’ve been living in more of a cave than I have 

It was pure coincidence that the first day I decided to see just what the store was all about that Angry Birds had just been released to the Chrome Web Store. Like a lot of things on the store, I noticed it was free (which surprised me) and decided to give it a whirl.

It’s a beta version apparently but I got through all the game’s default world/levels with no issues and had a blast. I don’t often play “casual” type games but I can see why this one is so popular; it’s mega addictive. I never thought throwing birds head first into pillars and pigs could be so fun, but there you go!

Besides Angry Birds, there’s heaps of other games available if you go hunting. Again, most are for free. I tried the likes of Super Mario, Zelda and a couple of soccer games, which were surprisingly good.  Generally installing and running the games/apps is effortless and fast, though I did find a couple of games that did not load for any particular reason.

Games are obviously what had me most interested but they are just one of many apps available. As I said, you can get anything from the gimmicky little widgets to very handy full blown online “cloud” applications, like photo editing tools and even slideshow presentations akin to PowerPoint, business accounting apps etc. Whatever you can imagine pretty much.

You can also find a lot more themes and extensions in the web store. Particularly the themes, as there are hundreds here to choose from instead of the few dozen or so on Chrome’s default theme chooser page.

I say at least have a look at the Web Store if you haven’t already, whilst there might be plenty of things you don’t need, have a dig around and you might find something awesome. I’m typically not into cloud based apps that much, but the likes of Google Docs etc I have to admit, have quite impressed me and I now use them quite often. The store is ever growing and there is also a very large community behind it contributing, give it a look and see what you think.

The best thing? Well, as someone who likes to use open source alternatives wherever I can, I use the Chromium web browser (the base upon which Google Chrome is built… or rather re-branded with a few extra features). Thankfully, the Web Store is right there in the Chromium browser as if you were using it’s proprietary sister. That goes for a lot of Chrome’s features though, I do love how all the extensions and themes etc are all there for Chromium too. It’s a seamless experience for me and one of the reasons I’m admittedly a Google fan :p