Chrome OS gets third-party cloud storage integration

Google plans to add support for third-party cloud storage services such as Dropbox and Amazon S3 in Chrome OS’s file manager. The operating system must also be able to handle webdav, samba shares and sftp.

Google is currently testing the new functionality and has the necessary APIs almost ready to accommodate it in development versions of Chrome OS, the site OmgChrome reports. All cloud storage services and network protocols are housed in a file system provider API. Initially, Google wants to focus on the cloud storage services Dropbox and Amazon S3 buckets, while also focusing on the webdav protocol. In the future, the sftp and samba protocols should also be supported, as well as the Box service.

In the testing phase, Google would have set all APIs to read-only for security. Ultimately, all basic operations on files, such as deleting files, creating folders, and renaming files should be possible in Chrome OS’s file manager. It is not yet clear when the functionality will be widely rolled out to Chromebooks.

Chrome OS should also integrate with Chromecast, Google’s HDMI dongle. From now on, media files on Google Drive must be able to be opened on a Chromecast using Chrome OS, so that, for example, video clips can be viewed on a television. The Chromecast functionality is currently only available in the development builds of Chrome OS, reports Google developer François Beaufort.