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Google Activates Chrome Profile Manager

Posted on 25. Jul, 2011 by Wolfgang Gruener in News

Editor’s note: this article originally appeared on our partnership site ConceivablyTech.

Google is launching a major new feature in Chrome, which will enable the browser to handle multiple profiles and offer a Chrome OS-like user experience in a standard browser environment.

Google’s Chrome Profiles is one of those examples that makes Chrome as a browser in today’s Internet environment so valuable. It is an innovative step that is rather obvious, but gives the browser an edge over its key rivals IE9/10 and Firefox 5/6/7/8, and distances itself from the other major Webkit browser, Safari.

The latest Chromium builds include an activated profile manager, which Google has been teasing in developer builds in Chrome and Chromium for several months (the feature of the window bar had briefly appeared in the Tools menu last week as well.) The Google account indicator in the window bar on the right top is gone, and Google apparently decided to move the profile manager to the very left, where the current default profile is displayed using a cupcake symbol.

Users can now create and delete new profiles. New profiles consist of a profile name (which do not require a Google account at setup) as well as a profile icon. The customization features tied to a user profile are determined by Chrome’s “Personal Stuff” settings in the Options menu and are unique for each profile. Included are the options to sync bookmarks, passwords, autofill options and browsing history with a Google account, as well as a custom browser theme that can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store.

The feature is fully functional and is only limited by the availability of four different user icons at this time, which is likely to change until the release of the final version of Chrome 14, which we expect to arrive in mid- to late September.

Tags: Chrome profile manager, Chrome profiles, Chromium profile manager, Chromium profiles