Google Cloud Print now available on Windows

Google's Chrome-powered remote printing service, Cloud Print, has extended its reach with the release of two packages to allow for remote printing from any Windows application.

The search giant has released a Cloud Printer driver that allows for regular, non-Chrome, Windows applications to access cloud printers. The company also released a Google Cloud Printer Service to allow for enterprise users to connect existing printers.

Cloud printing was already available for Chrome users, with Android users gaining the ability earlier this month via an app

In addition, users are now able to share printers with the use of a URL.

When a print job is executed using cloud printer, the document being printed is send to Google, with a permanent record of the job's metadata being stored against the user's Google account.

"Google also keeps a copy of each document you send for printing — but only for so long as the printing job is active and not complete." says Google's Cloud Print FAQ.

"We have to do this to make sure your document gets printed. Once the job is complete, the document is deleted from our servers."

Users do have the ability to delete the metadata through the Clodu Print dashboard, with Google saying that it does not access documents sent to it to be printed.

"Documents you send to print are your personal information and are kept strictly confidential. Google does not access the documents you print for any purpose other than to improve printing."