Google Chrome has been my primary browser for a few months now. And since it became fully stable, it’s the only browser I use. It’s fast, lightweight, and awesome. And it keeps getting more awesome.

One of the best things about Chrome is extension support. There are already nearly 5,000 of them despite only launching this past December. And the extensions continue to get more powerful. Today, on the Chromium Blog, Google has announced that desktop notifications are now available to third-party extension developers.

Previously, the only way to notify Chrome users of an update by way of extension was to do so by badging an extension icon itself. Now, full messages can pop-up on the desktop (assuming you allow them, of course). A great example is the Gmail Notifier extension, which gives you Growl-like notifications of new emails as they come in.

As of Chrome 5 (the latest stable version), these desktop notifications are available to all extension developers. And Google says they’ll be looking for the best ones to feature in the Extension Gallery.