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Although I use it as a secondary browser to Firefox, I've been steadily gaining respect for Google Chrome since its arrival a few months back. It's fast, works around many of the crashing problems I've experienced with other browsers, and I'm especially looking forward to upcoming extensions for it. If you're using it too, you may be interested in the following five Chrome resources, including a more secure fork of the Chromium core, and solid information on what to expect next for the browser.

Last week, Moodlerooms announced that it had teamed with Google to integrate the Google Apps for Education service into Moodle.

This allows students and faculty using the open source Moodle learning platform to access all of Google's educational tools and applications, as well as the Moodle system, with a single sign on. Even more significantly, it simplifies managing and maintaining network collaboration tools, and allows students to access the system and get working on any computer that has a browser.

Consider the different approaches to openness taken by the two companies with (arguably) the greatest product differentiation, most thriving ecosystems and potent cash-flow generation engines in the [mobile arena]: Apple and Google, writes Mark Sigal on GigaOm.? Apple and Google are playing out a classic proprietary vs. open game of tug-of-war with the iPhone and the Android platforms. Sigal argues that the fly in the ointment with Google's Android strategy is that Google has to set limits on what will work with deployments of the Android platform. How much of a problem is that, and how truly open is Android? Check out Sigal's post for more thoughts.

Via OSNews comes word that the developers bringing Chrome to Linux have opted to use GTK over Qt as the browser's framework.

The development team's decision wasn't an easy one. The questions they addressed about Chrome's appearance and behavior, what end-users need and expect, and how to make it work smoothly on the Linux desktop are highly subjective, and in some cases, emotionally charged. The FAQ on the Chromium developer's site states that while both toolkits are capable of doing the job (WebKit handles most rendering with the exception of some form controls and dialogs), the team opted for GTK due to their level of familiarity with it.

GigaOm reports: We?ve already heard of efforts to port Android to netbooks ? but today it appears another, more important milestone has been reached. Moto Labs says it has succeeded in porting Android to E Ink display screens. E Ink is an electronic paper display technology with a paper-like, high-contrast appearance, ultra-low-power consumption and a thin, light form; Moto Labs has developed a way to marry Android to the E Ink development kit. And while the fruits of this labor won?t show up in a commercial product for some 12-18 months, it?s still big, big news. Check out the complete story.

Google's Summer of Code (SoC) Program has united students interested in open source with projects and mentors for several years now. The intiative's goal is to foster interest in open source software while exposing students to real-world software development processes. It's easy to see, based on how enthusiastically some projects embrace the annual event, that the students aren't the only ones who benefit from the program.

This week, both KDE and GNOME announced that development teams under their respective umbrellas wishing to submit project ideas and mentor students this summer were able to do so.

This also means interested students can get a sneak peek at potential projects and mentors. The list of projects (and mentors) won't be finalized until mid-March, but seeing as students only have two weeks to submit their applications, an advance project screening might prove helpful.

It may not be perfectly stable yet, but if you've been following along with the beta releases of Mozilla's Firefox 3.1 browser, you can now get and test the candidate for Beta 3, as described here. Mozilla is calling for a Test Week for this latest version. Beta 3 was scheduled to be out on February 2nd, but bug fixes were required. Meanwhile, PC Pro has an interesting story up in which Firefox architect Mike Connor describes plans for version 3.2 of Firefox.

The Google Operating System blog and The Open Road have noted that Google's open source Chrome browser will get Firefox-like extensions by May. That's when the Google I/O conference takes place in San Francisco, and there is a session there titled Developing extensions for Google Chrome. According to Google officials This talk will cover the basics of the extension system (distribution/packaging, installation, updates), as well as the different APIs to enhance with the browser. As I've written before, this, along with the delivery of Mac and Linux versions of Chrome, will kick the browser into high gear, with Internet Explorer facing many problems.

Recently, we covered benchmarks showing the Release Candidate for Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 8 browser seriously lagging open source browsers Firefox and Google Chrome. We also discussed Microsoft's acknowledgement that the European Commission may force it to see that alternative browsers to IE ship on new computers. Now, representing the latest blow for Internet Explorer, new research shows Microsoft's browser continuing to lose market share.