The Chrome app launcher is getting the boot on Windows, Mac, and Linux

Let’s be honest. The Chrome app launcher was always a little bit awkward. I mean, you had to use two clicks to do anything – even just launch vanilla Chrome. By using Chrome normally, you could get to any of your apps in the same number of clicks, and just vaulting into brainless browsing didn’t even require that second click. So it’s really no surprise that Google has decided to pull Chrome app launcher support on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The company says that this move is in response to feedback which revealed that users simply preferred launching apps from within the browser. Since jumping into them through the launcher didn’t save anybody any clicks, Google has decided to gradually remove support over the next several months. A few weeks from now, you will no longer be able to enable the launcher upon a clean Chrome installation, and by July, users who have the app launcher installed will start to see it disappear from their computers. If you want to access your apps, you’ll need to do it the old fashioned way by just navigating to them. Since most people seem to prefer this method anyway, there’s no great loss here.

However, those using the Chrome OS will continue to be able to use the app launcher. Evidently, those running this OS seem more comfortable with the launcher and get more use out of it than those using different operating systems, so Google is keeping the feature around for these users.

What do you think of Google’s removal of the Chrome app launcher? Was this something that you ever really used? Let us know you general take of the development in the comments below.