Google opens Chrome Web Store to world+dog
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Google I/O Google has announced that its Chrome Web store is now available globally in over 41 languages.
Google opened the Chrome Web Store in the US this past December, bringing the Apple App Store model to web applications. On Wednesday at its annual developer conference in San Francisco, it said that it has now opened the store worldwide, making it available to anyone using the company's Chrome browser. According to Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president of product management, over 70 million apps have been downloaded from the Chrome Web Store.
Google also announced that developers can use the company's in-app purchasing platform for a flat fee of 5 per cent. Apple charges iOS apps a 30 per cent fee for in-app payments, and this was clearly in mind when a room full of Mountain View–happy developers cheered Google's announcement.
According to Pichai, Chrome is now used by 160 million people worldwide. That number has more than doubled since this time last year.
The Chrome Web Store offers both free and paid applications, and it mimics app installs within the browser. The rub is that it's specific to Chrome and does not work with other browsers. Last May, when Google first unveiled the Chrome Web Store, Mozilla told the world that it would prefer a store that's browser agnostic, and in October, the open source outfit released a prototype for such a store. Mozilla is not opening its own store. The idea is to create an entire ecosystem of stores that adhere to web standards, serving up apps for any browser. ®
COMMENTS
Wtf?
What the heck do you need an "app store" to purchase a URL to a web site?
-dZ.
Stupid app pricing
What's up the Google setting the minimum price of a Chrome Web Store app at US$1.99?
Most successful paid apps are have been around the 99 cents mark, less than a dollar is usually an instant buy for most people closer to 2 not so much. Especially when what you're buying is nothing more than a website.
Hopefully they'll have a lower tier for in-app purchases otherwise it becomes pretty pointless.
It's almost like Google doesn't really want paid ad-free apps to be successful, how strange ;-)
And if you google for "chrome web store"...
...this message serves as the summary in the search results:
"Sorry, we don't support your browser just yet. You'll need Google Chrome to install apps, extensions and themes.Download Google Chrome."
Guess they didn't add their spider to the list of supported browsers...
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