News broke last week that the latest developer builds of Chrome include support for themes. And a few sites even found a couple of them that you can easily install right now using special links. But links are a less than ideal way of installing these themes since you can’t see what they look like before you turn them on. Luckily, Google appears ready to launch a theme directory for the skins.
The site, which will reside here, is not live yet. But on the default new tab/new window page, the one with the thumbnails of your most visited sites, if you click on the “X” to remove some of them, a themes page shows up as a thumbnail (see included screenshot).
When you click on the thumbnail, it takes you to the not-live-yet page. But the thumbnail clearly shows this page will have a bunch of themes for Chrome. My superior counting skills tell me there are 24 themes shown in that thumbnail alone.
This little trick to get the themes directory thumbnail to show up works in the latest developer builds of Chrome for both Windows and Mac (I haven’t tried it on Linux).
Speaking of Chrome for Mac, it continues to come along nicely, with limited support for Flash just being added recently. We’re told it’s working in the Linux build as well. Alongside themes, improved support for extensions is included in this new Chrome build.
Themes have been available on Chrome for a while, but they used to require you to download files and know which folder to drop them in. It was also hard to revert to the original one. This latest build allows for push-button skinning and an easy way to revert. You can find two of the Chrome themes on this page (theme.crx is “Camo,” theme2.crx is “Snowflake”). Click on them and then click “download” on the next page from within the new build of Chrome to install them.
[thanks Brinke]
Awesomeness! I love Chrome on my Mac. It’s the fastest browsers I have ever used.
Theme’s are very important for me.
From what I know, the Chrome browser doesn’t work on Mac OS.
http://code.goo...e.com/chromium/
I like how your doubting a statement I made. I can’t be wrong… I’m using it right now!
…. RTFA
Yay one step closer to plugins! If I could have firebug in Chrome it would finally be byebye firefox.
Firebug is great but Chrome does use the built in WebKit developer inspector which can pretty much do what Firebug does.
yeah, I was checking out it earlier, looks pretty damn sweet at first glance.
And at the second glance?
exactly the same as in Safari.
Yeah I tried that out the other day on my dell laptop, shame the theme page isn’t up yet. I wanted to try camo skinning Chrome.
this is another nice feature for chrome. I’m running the dev build with adsweep enabled, which is quite nice. I think it’ll really fly once extensions are fully enabled and easily added. People have become quite dependent on extensions.
hopefully their extension scripting will be well documented because I’ve heard many complaints about firefox’s being hard to deal with.
I hope there’s a theme that makes Chrome’s transparent Chrome (UI) in Vista even more transparent. Say, 100%. The fact that it stays out of my way and just gives me a nice wrapper around a webpage is exactly what I wanted.
That’d be interesting.
I only now noticed that you’re the @parislemon I keep seeing people @replying to in my Twitter stream.
Dan, use F11 to toggle full-screen mode in Chrome. That gets rid of essentially everything but the web page.
There’s a weird strip on the top of mine when I do that though. it’s a few pixels wide of whatever theme I’m using. maybe it’s just a bug in the Mac developer build though.
I know! I get that too. It’s weird and annoying.
It’s embarrassing how earnest MG Siegler is when hyping up some insignificant feature. He gets played by tech PR flacks like a ukulele.
For god’s sake, man. At least have the decency to shill some dubious health products or invest in the companies you write about.
Yeah, PR flacks are often dishing out information about unreleased features found through random tweaks.
future ~ chrome market share 40% firebug ~ 40% Others 19.99 % and rest ~ IE 6, 7, 8 9 and possibly 10 also…:X
cheers,
Marvin
http://yousuggest.us
You never know, there could be a new player in the browser next year. *wink wink
Thanks MG for the article.
Its nice addition, but for a slim browser UI which display 96% of the webpage and u can only notice the tabs, themes will not be noticeable !
I have used Google chrome and its really working fine.
Chrome is really awesome and light and with features like these to enhance it’s offerings it’s hard to continue using other browsers, I shifted chrome as a secondary browser but now I always find myself using chrome. Way to go Google. I would like to see many other cool add-ons that make interface much more convenient.
Sonal Maheshwari
USourceIT your single source for all IT needs
I am waiting when it will add and extentions like firefox to swith from ff
Ok great now we have themes for Chrome. Can mouse gestures be next?
You might never know, there could be a new player in the browser next year. *wink wink
You might never know, there could be a new player in the browser war next year. *wink wink
themes? Are you kidding me ? they should spend their manpower trying to improve their browser first. Firefox, IE8 rule right now for a million of reasons..
One has to admit professionalism and perseverance pays in the long run http://www.thessayist.com is an excellent aide for your academic needs.
I love using themes in the browser as it adds color may be I will try some
Bad news for sites like http://chromespot.com , although this kind of sites are broader with plugins and extensions and so forth seems Google will be taking away their traffic.
Hey, any idea about Google introducing addons/widgets/plugins for the Chrome ?
OMG, is that from the same company which launched Google Knol aka Wikipedia killer?
Lots of bells and whistles but no effect on the market.
MG = Mostly Google
I have been using chrome since it first came out because firefox was extremely slow to load and seemed quite slow / buggy. Downloaded 3.5 over the weekend, just love it. Using the chrome theme has made the switch even easier.
FF 3.5 is just great
…but we where waiting for the plugins…
“Large Themes Gallery”
How much did you get for posting this? lol
On the mentioned SS there are 24 themes. That is large? Maybe I have another definition, but large means 500… 1000 to me. 24… and even 50 is not much at all.
I have started experimenting with Google Chrome and I am not yet 100% convinced I am ready to make the switch. There are some impressive features on the web browser.
I think themes will be the ‘thing’ that starts attracting more mainstream users (read: IE users). Never underestimate the power of personalization. I do think Chrome has a long way to go, but this could be a catalyst.
MG – one minor criticism – could you maybe have included a screen shot of one of the themes actually installed, instead of a 404 error. Not entirely compelling.
Never mind, now I see it at the bottom. It was camouflaged. My bad.
I just noticed that in the Linux Dev build, there’s a link in options “Get themes”, that takes you to the above page.
Themes seem almost an overkill for a browser that touts its minimal interface as a feature, don’t they? I guess it’s a good thing, just can’t really muster up any excitement over this. I’m waiting for proper plugin support for Chrome… while at the same time I’m not looking forward to a time when “which browser to use” is no longer an easy decision – how will I decide?!
“This little trick to get the themes directory thumbnail to show up works in the latest developer builds of Chrome for both Windows and Mac (I haven’t tried it on Linux).”
It works on Linux.
Who gives a shit about themes? Seriously? Spending engineering resources and bloating up the code base just so you can change out the toolbar background = retarded.
I still pre fer fire fox,don’t know why but i fine my going back.
even though i have chrome installed.
Well i don think this comes as a surprise. Firefox has a huge collection of themes and Chrome is next up in line to release its theme gallery…
I will still go for the trusty firefox!
down with themes and skins, no thank you. it will just slow it down. and possibly make it ugly like firefox. you cant even have a skin that looks like vista/windows7 in firefox.