While playing League of Legends my friends and I use Google hangouts as our communication software.

Off Topic… Razer has recently release “Razer Comms” but since nobody has yet tried it or would surely be unwilling to install yet an other voice software, I haven’t yet given it a try, even though it sounds and looks very promising.

My computer is a beast in terms of power, so I have no worry keeping every window on my computer open while I game.  What worries me though is the people that have lower to mid ranged computers that take a while to load games.

Which brought to question, “Could there be a way to use a hangout  without a web browser?”  Lately it seems that most web browsers, even/especially chrome have been resource hogs in terms of RAM and process count.

I tried to install Google Talk, but sadly Google Talk does not look like it has changed since the release, it is very basic looking, and kind of sad looking since it has an old mac feeling to it, and it just feels under developed and out of place.  I instantly uninstalled Google Talk. Sadly Google Talk didn’t even have mention of hangouts…

I finally ran across the answer for how to start a Google Hangout without opening a web browser or needing a gmail tab open all the time. The answer lies within an extension called “Chat for Google”
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chat-for-google/nckgahadagoaajjgafhacjanaoiihapd

It runs in background mode so that you can chat without having your web browser open.  It looks great, and contains all your buddies from G+, it is definitely much better than using a Gmail tab all the time, but then again when isn’t my browser ever open 😛

At first I was a little frustrated with how it was docked and always on top of other windows.  I learned the next day though that you could keep dragging and eventually it will tear off from the bottom of the screen, and it will no longer be “always top” when you do this : )  All the initial disappointment and anger that I had in this extension has now been relieved.  There are surely a few things that it could do or use to make it better, but now that I know how to use it better, I am much more pleased with it.

As a random last note, I imagine that this was created thanks to Chromebooks : ) glad to see it created and maintained by Google, as long as it doesn’t end up like Google Talk…