Google Chrome is an open-source web browser from Google, currently available only for the Windows platform. It aims to have a minimal and easy to use interface. Chrome uses the WebKit rendering engine, which was developed from KHTML, and it is used in various browsers like Konqueror on KDE4 or Safari (on Mac OS X).

Search giant Google has finally launched a repository of its software for Linux users. The repository will house the latest Linux versions of its software and make it easier for Linux users to keep up to date.

Google has revealed that it is "actively working" on bringing its Chrome browser to Mac OS X and Linux operating systems.

The Linux version of Google’s Chrome web browser is not ready yet. Don’t boot up Windows, if you’re interested in testing it out it’s possible to do so by running Chrome under Wine.

One helpful Ubuntu hacker blogger posts a guide to getting Google Chrome working as a stand-alone app in Ubuntu, using the latest version of the Windows translator WINE and a stand-alone copy of Chrome's installer.

The real Labor Day storm wasn't Gustav, it was Google's announcement, by comic book no less, that it was releasing its own Web browser: Chrome. So why is Google doing this? First, off let me tell what it's not. It's not an attempt to kill off Internet Explorer or Firefox. Google just renewed its partnership with Mozilla and that deal, which runs through 2011 accounts for 85% of Mozilla's income.

Google has released a platform for running their widget applications (Google Desktop Gadgets and web-based Universal Gadgets) on Linux. Google Gadgets for Linux is an open source project, and includes front-ends for GNOME and KDE environments.

Google Gadgets for Linux provides a platform for running desktop gadgets under Linux, catering to the unique needs of Linux users. We are compatible with the gadgets written for Google Desktop for Windows as well as the Universal Gadgets on iGoogle. Following Linux norms, this project will be open-sourced, under the Apache License.

Google Desktop has been available for some time now on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. However, Google Gadgets — mini-applications that can be placed anywhere on the desktop — have, until now, only been available on Windows and Mac. Jim Zhuang, of Google's software engineering team, announced the first Linux version on Tuesday.

About a year ago, Google released their desktop search called Google desktop for Linux. Since then they released some updates to Google Desktop adding support for 64 bit and more file fomats, but they left out one big feature of its Windows and Mac counterparts: Gadgets, mini-applications written in HTML and JavaScript.

Contrary to some reports, everything that makes Android “Android”, including all the core platform components and libraries needed to port Android to new devices will be open sourced under commonly used, industry standard licenses, says Google.

The annual Google Summer of Code is upon us again. For the uninformed, that’s when Google pays hundreds of students and hundreds of mentors to work on free software projects, ranging from AbiSource to Zumastor. This is where great projects like the GDebiKDE installer were created. And this year looks even better than before, with 175 organizations and 1125 students. So today, I’m going to do a short rundown of some of my favorites. I can’t fit them all in (let’s save some trees!), but these are just some that stood out for me.

Google has released a number of interesting softwares for Linux platform now because all of these softwares are closed sourced :( and better free open source alternatives are available these packages are not installed by default in most of the popular Linux distributions. Also being closed source means they are not available in Official repositories too. In this article we discuss how to install these software inside Ubuntu 8.04.

Do you fancy Web-based word processors but aren't ready to leave OpenOffice.org? You can work with your Zoho Writer and Google Docs files from the convenience of OpenOffice.org Writer, courtesy of the OoGdocsIntegrator extension.

With the newest version of Screenlets, 0.1, you can now run not only Python Screenlets but also Google Gadgets, other web widgets, and web applications. If you want to get started with Screenlets, I’ve previously written a guide about installing and configuring it: OS X-Like Widgets with Screenlets on Ubuntu.

Best Greasemonkey and Stylish scripts (both are Firefox extensions).

 http://icehot.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/best-greasemonkey-and-stylish-scripts/

Google gears makes web applications work offline. It seamlessly synchronizes and stores an image of the online version on your local pc for offline use. Quite a lot of web apps are available on google gears. Some common ones that I have used - Google Reader, Autodesk draw, Zoho Writer etc. It first came out for windows in mid 2007 and now they have a fully functional, stable version for Linux. Installing it and using it is really easy. Let's see how.

From Techthrob.com:

Google's Picasa software is a powerful tool for managing your photo collection. It provides a simple interface for organizing your pictures, as well as some easy-to-use, yet powerful image manipulation tools. However, until recently the Windows version of Picasa has had some features that put it above the Linux version; some of these features, like Picasa Web Album integration, are at the core of the program, without which Picasa isn't very useful. With its newest release, the Linux version is being brought up to par with its Windows counterpart.

Google recently confirmed in a blog posting that it had paid Codeweavers to help develop WINE to make Photoshop usable on the well-regarded but still somewhat unpredictable software package, which aims to replicate Windows libraries to enable popular Windows applications run in a Linux environment.

There's a nice little extension for OpenOffice.org that lets you quickly upload your document to your googledocs account. Click here to get it.