Google has enabled Flash Player integration in the stable release of its Chrome browser.

A man who, according to his LinkedIn profile, "started and manage[d] the Chrome OS project" is now leaving Google.  Matthew Papakipos announced this after

Google’s Chrome browser has overtaken Apple’s Safari in the U.S. for the first time on a weekly basis according to StatCounter.

The company says for the week beginning June 21 Chrome surpassed Safari to claim third place in the U.S. browser market.

"This is quite a coup for Google as they have gone from zero to almost 10% of the US market in under two years," said Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter.

Google’s support of Flash, while never a secret, is now very much a matter of public record.  The latest stable version of Chrome – 5.0.375.86, if you’re keeping track – includes Flash and even has it programmed to start "on."

One of the largest computer manufacturers in the world is quite interested in Google’s operating systems, according to a representative.  A Dell exec in fact indicated today that his company is in talks with Google and wants to help break new ground.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, PDFs are far from rare.  Legal documents, official letters, and corporate reports – among many other things – are often found in this format rather than any other.  It’s important, then, that the Google Chrome team has begun to take PDFs into account.

Flock has announced a complete redesign of its browser, originally based on Mozilla Firefox. The new one is based on Google’s Chromium platform (the open-source project behind Google Chrome), and like Chrome, places a great deal of emphasis on speed.

Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have taken up a good deal of the web browser headlines in recent memory. Google showcased its much-publicized speed tests for Chrome (even parodied by Opera), then launched a stable version for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Google has launched new stable versions of its Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

"Since last December, we’ve been chipping away at bugs and building in new features to get the Mac and Linux versions caught up with the Windows version, and now we can finally announce that the Mac and Linux versions are ready for prime time," says Chrome product manager Brian Rakowski.

There has been a wide range of interesting announcements coming out of Google I/O this week where WebProNews is covering the event.

What do you think has been the most interesting announcement from Google I/O so far? Let us know in the comments!

Update Google I/O

During the very long and drawn out keynote here at Google I/O today, there were many speakers and many topics addressed, including a number of new announcements from Google. Among these was the announcement of the Chrome Web Store, dubbed an open marketplace for web apps that helps people find the best web applications across the internet and allows developers to reach new users. The announcement was only a preview.

New Chrome users may be overwhelmed to find that the extensions gallery considers 4,810 extensions "popular," making customization an intimidating prospect.  There are 89 "featured" Chrome extensions, too, which is still a lot.  So Google’s attempted to organize its Chrome Extensions gallery by introducing six categories.

About four weeks ago, Gmail gained a drag-and-drop feature that made attaching files to emails considerably more convenient.  Now, as a sort of complement to that text-focused upgrade, another new feature is set to make inserting pictures into emails easier, as well.

A noteworthy point here is that Google’s skipped past the beta/lab stage, offering the new option to lots of ordinary Gmail users.  Another important fact is that it’s user-friendly – the sort of thing even people who don’t read WebProNews and official Google blogs might discover for themselves.

Mozilla CEO John Lilly dropped a bomb late yesterday in announcing that he would be stepping down from his position. The news came just after Mozilla revealed its early product plan for Firefox 4, in which it placed great emphasis on speed and HTML5 support – two of the big selling points for competing browser Google Chrome.

Google’s Chrome browser has received a lot of buzz lately as it has showcased its efforts in speed testing using potato guns, paint, a pirate ship, lightning, etc. Meanwhile, Chrome has been creeping up steadily in web browser market share.

Perhaps in an effort to keep users from switching to Chrome, Mozilla wants it to be known that it is working on speed as well, and is enabling new open, standard web technologies ("HTML5 and beyond" it says).

Chrome did pretty well in April, according to the latest stats from Net Applications, increasing its market share by 0.60 percent.  And now, to perhaps speed the browser’s adoption even more, Google’s unveiled what it promises is the fastest beta version of Chrome to date.

March was yet another good month for Google’s browser in terms of market share.  According to Net Applications, Chrome converted more than a few additional people, shrinking the gaps between it and the field’s two leaders, Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Google and Adobe may be set to grow a lot closer.  A new report claims that the two companies will announce a partnership tomorrow, and that the deal will entail some form of bundling between Chrome and Flash.

Not too many years ago, threads on online forums would often have titles like "New Ferrari Pics (56K users, make coffee)" as a way of warning people with slow connections that they’d be stuck for a while.  Now, Tom’s Hardware has established which modern Web browsers will slow folks down – and which won’t.

Most major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera, didn’t fare well in February, losing market share.  Net Applications found that Chrome managed to attract more than a few new users, however, increasing its market share by 0.39 percent on a month-over-month basis.

Here are a couple odd facts for you: compared to people everywhere else, folks in North America dislike Chrome.  And individuals who live in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada are unusually big fans of Internet Explorer.  That’s what new Quantcast data implies, anyway.