in brief Google yesterday in the US said it planned to develop an add-ons system for its new Chrome browser, similar to the functionality that can be found in rival Mozilla Firefox.

Google's Sundar Pichai

"We don't have that in the beta today, but we definitely plan an extension API," or application programming interface, Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president of product management, said at a Chrome launch event. "It is one of the things we will get to next."

Firefox extensions cover a wide swathe of abilities, from synchronizing bookmarks to debugging Web site performance to showing detailed exposure data for online photographs. The extensibility has attracted scads of programmers, too, which is strategically important for most computing efforts.

Extensions shouldn't be confused with a related technology, plug-ins, which includes software such as Sun Microsystems' Java, Microsoft's Silverlight, and Adobe Systems' Flash. Existing plug-ins work in Chrome, Pichai said.