But the little launcher is a Trojan horse for much bigger ambitions—especially when paired with packaged Chrome apps. Packaged apps are available now, but since Google has yet to highlight them in the Chrome Web Store, you might not be familiar with them.
Packaged apps are programs built on the bones of the Chrome browser. They use traditional Web languages such as HTML5 and CSS, but they run as separate, standalone software that can also be used offline, unlike traditional browsers. With the arrival of packaged apps and the Chrome App Launcher, no longer will you need to connect to the Internet, open the Chrome browser, and launch the Web app you want to use.
As soon as the app is installed, you will notice a new icon in the Windows Taskbar. Click the icon to open the app launcher with the list of all your installed Chrome apps. Any offline apps will launch directly on the Windows Desktop, while the ones that require an internet connection will be launched in the default internet browser. If you are a regular user of Chrome apps, this is quite a useful addition to the system and simplifies the process of launching your favorite apps.
Hopefully, it will be soon make its way to the Beta and then the Stable channel for Windows as well as Mac OS X and Linux, allowing every Chrome user to take advantage from this useful feature.
The apps that you install in Chrome are associated with your Google account. In Google Chrome, go to a new tab. This is where you can install apps from. Note that not all the items in the Chrome web store are apps some are extensions to the browser. The company said at the time it would remove the launcher in July. The app launcher was an icon on the Windows taskbar that contained links to all your installed Chrome apps. The feature made it easier to get at your installed Chrome apps— say, Google Drive, Maps, or Gmail—without launching the full Chrome browser.
Google said it decided to give up on the feature because most users prefer to launch Chrome apps from the browser anyway.
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