Search engine giant, Google, has reached yet another milestone: The Chrome web browser now has 10,000 extensions available, many of which have been available for download for nearly a year. Included in the number are the regular browser extensions to increase functionality and productivity, as well as themes to enhance the look and feel of the browser. According to a celebratory post on the Chromium blog in honor of the milestone, every Chrome user has installed at least one extension or theme, and at least 70 million extensions have been installed overall.
A closer look at the extensions gallery in the Chrome browser reveals that there are actually over 10,000 extensions available. 10,078 were available on the last check.
Why is this such a big accomplishment? There is one big reason worth mentioning: Firefox. Mozilla’s popular browser is Chrome’s biggest competition at this point, especially in the add-on/extension market. The most recent check on the total of Firefox extensions showed 12,739.
It’s easy to see that the two browsers are close in terms of the number of extensions each offers its users. Chrome, though, has shown considerably more in terms of growth over the last eight months. Last spring, Firefox offered users a total of 11,000 add-ons, while Chrome only offered 3,000. Do the math, and it’s easy to see that extensions developed for Chrome have more than doubled.
The next six months could prove interesting for both companies as Google rolls out its newly minted Chrome OS (which depends heavily on extensions), and as Mozilla rolls Firefox 4 through its beta phase.
The two search engine giants are about to begin a battle over web apps as well, with Google releasing its Chrome Web Store. At this point, though, most of the available apps function as extensions more than anything else. Mozilla plans to fight back with the release of its Open Web App Ecosystem.
