May 25, 2011 15:11 GMT  ·  By

One of Google Chrome's great features is sync which enables users to store their bookmarks, preferences, apps and so on, in the cloud making them available on any browser they log into. It's a very useful feature, but the regular cloud caveats apply, among which is data security.

So a new feature just landed in Chromium should come in very handy, the latest builds now have the option of encrypting all of the synced data, not just the passwords, like until now.

Chrome sync is rather handy, but more cautious users are worried that they don't have any control over the data once it hits the cloud. Everything is stored in users' Google Docs accounts. Normally, no one should be able to access the data except yourself, but things don't always happen as they should.

Since they're stored in plain, anyone with access to the files can view them and find out about your browsing habits or get their hands on private information.

A security breach, a rogue engineer, a pushy government, or even a nefarious attempt from the company storing your data online, all mean that your data is not entirely safe.

One way of protecting your files is by using encryption, which makes the contents of the files inaccessible to those that don't have the encryption key, or don't manage to break it.

Site password data has always been encrypted in Chrome sync, users could choose their own Google account passwords as the key or, for added safety, create a new passphrase. Now, Google is extending this to all data stored by the sync feature.

The feature is still optional, if you don't want to fiddle with passwords or passphrases and feel confident in the safety of the Google cloud or believe you don't have anything to hide, you can continue not to use encryption. Plenty of people will appreciate the possibility though. Encryption for all sync files should be landing in Google Chrome 13 soon.