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Chrome in Metro coming soon for Windows 8 Preview

Chrome in Metro coming soon for Windows 8 Preview

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A Metro-optimized version of Chrome for Windows 8 will soon be released.

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Metro for Chrome
Metro for Chrome

Fans of Chrome or its open source cousin Chromium will soon be able to get a version optimized for the Release Preview of Windows 8, as the team says it's almost ready to unveil what it promised us in March. Chrome in Metro is designed to work in both the desktop and Metro environments of Windows 8 on any x86 machine. Pretty much all PCs should be fine, but anybody on ARM will be out of luck, since some features of Windows RT are restricted to Internet Explorer. The shot above looks much like ordinary Chrome, but the software will apparently integrate with Windows 8 features like charms and snap view. It's likely to be a bit rough when it launches, so the Chromium team urges users to file bug reports.

If you're interested in trying out the software, you should be able to see it soon on the Chromium dev channels page. From there, you'll be able to install it and set it as a default browser. Metro on desktop is still in its early days, so it's good to see major pieces like this fall into place.

Update: Although this version of Chrome won't work on Windows RT, it's theoretically possible for one to be developed for ARM-based machines. However, it wouldn't be able to run on Classic mode, and companies like Mozilla have complained about APIs being limited to everyone but Internet Explorer.