In an age of smartphones, web browsers, and operating systems that alert you to every new email, calendar appointment, and more, there hasn't been much need for Google's free Notifier app. Apparently Google thought the same thing, and today quietly discontinued the free tool, which has been around since 2005. Users looking to install the app are now being told by Google to simply install Chrome, which has desktop notifications built in and can hook up to the company's productivity apps. Long before such inventions, the small software utility was able to check for messages every two minutes, and alert users to new mail and calendar events. It was also an intermediary to Google's online services for people who didn't use a native mail or calendar client, and preferred doing everything in the browser. Even so, Google didn't put much faith into the tool, duplicating many of its core features inside other software, like Google Talk.