Google, Inc. is adding more features to its Chromebook applications so they can be used without accessing the Web.

In doing so, Google responds to a common complaint among users that want their Chromebook laptops to function more like traditional PCs. Google also recently gave users the capability to edit videos and watch full movies offline.

A Chromebook is a PC running Google's Chrome operating system. Chromebook laptops and other devices are designed to be used while connected to the Internet. All the data is stored in the "cloud" and accessed by an Internet connection.

Google is focusing its efforts at Chromebooks users that want to replace their PCs running the Windows XP operating system that is no longer supported by Microsoft. Google and partners are offering discounts to those who want to replace XP PCs with Chromebooks.

Google has identified applications that can work offline in its Chrome Apps store and more applications are being added to that list.

"The platform has evolved and keeps improving," said Caesar Sengupta, vice president of product management for Chromebooks at Google. "It is an OS that updates every six weeks. It keeps getting better."

Sengupta said the world has changed, and that users are looking at different kind of computing needs than XP. Chromebooks are also going to be faster to speed-up gaming and videoconferencing, among other tasks.

Since cloud-based services and features are necessary to run Chromebooks, Google is loading Chromebooks with features that increase accessibility to more Web services. It has added Google Now that uses voice activation to let users get news or make a phone call, for example. Google Now is in Android-based smartphones and tablets and uses speech recognition to fulfill requests.