How in the Tech

Open in Google Chrome from within Firefox

By Adam Myers ⋅ September 8, 2008 ⋅ Tags: Firefox, Google Chrome

By now you’ve probably heard about Google Chrome, the recently released open source browser from Google. Currently in beta and based around the Webkit rendered of Apple Safari fame, Chrome’s main offering to the table for most is the supercharged javascript interpreter. As Google continues its foray into web applications – think Gmail and Google Docs – performance becomes more and more important. Google is banking on us all eventually ditching desktop applications as we know it and moving 100% to the cloud. It’s easy to see why Google has a vested interested in the renewed browser wars. Google Chrome looks to be the next major focus from the folks at Google.

I’m not quite ready to ditch Firefox as I’m highly attached to it’s varied extensions, something lacking in Chrome. I suspect most of you are in the same boat as I. However, I do appreciate performance gains afford to me in Gmail by Chrome. Enter the Open in Google Chrome Firefox extensions, modeled after the highly popular IE View addon. Logically, the addon provides just what the name suggests: opening links in Google Chrome directly or even automatically by site.

1. Download the Open in Google Chrome extension and save it to your desktop.
2. Drag and drop the extension into your Firefox browser window to install. You’ll need to restart Firefox to complete the installation of course.
3. Configure the extension by going to Tools->Add-ons in Firefox. Find the Open In Google Chrome extension in the list and click it’s Options button.
4. Here you must provide the path to chrome.exe – the Google Chrome browser executable. In Vista you will find it under C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe



5. Here you may also Add sites that you wish to always view in Chrome. I’ve configured it to open Gmail in Chrome automatically.

Now you are able to right-click on any link or website and have it open in Chrome directly. Check it out!