Google's Trojan Horse reaching completion: Open files in Windows with Chrome Apps

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For a significant number of users a computer session starts, and ends with Chrome. Google continued to reinforce this with Chrome Apps, which are apps that run on the desktop, outside of the browser and can be pinned to your taskbar.

You will soon be able to open files from the Windows file explorer directly in Chrome Apps. Chrome apps will be able to specify the file types they handle, and for those file types, you will see the Chrome App listed in 'open with' when you right click a file. If the Chrome App is the only app installed which handles that file type, it will be set to default (so simply double clicking will open the file in the Chrome App). This will essentially remove all distinction of Chrome apps and desktop programs you have installed on Windows.

This has already been added to the Canary Chrome build for OSX (look in chrome://flags), and it should be hitting Linux soon (based on Google's track record).

Chrome apps have a number of advantages for Windows users. They are easy to find, as they are found in an app store, and come complete with reviews. They are also lightweight, and available automatically on all your computers (Windows, OSX, and Linux) you have synced to the Google account. The only real disadvantage was that you had to open the app before you could open a file with one, and soon that will no longer be cause for hesitance.

Lastly, while this feature will be implemented in Chrome, you will have to wait until your favorite apps take advantage of it before you can. Luckily, it doesn’t appear to require much effort, just a change in the app's manifest file.

Which Chrome apps have replaced desktop variants for you?

Image Credit: Sadik Gulec / Shutterstock

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