Google's Chrome Web Browser Finally Arrives On Mac And Linux
As Google continues on its path to world domination, it's more than
just Offline Gmail and Chrome OS getting attention. Just in time for
the holidays, Google has announced that its Chrome Web browser is now
available (in beta form, of course) for those "other" operating
systems. You know, Mac and Linux! We kid, we kid.
Chrome has only been out for a few months over on the Windows side, and while it hasn't garnered the kind of following that Firefox has quite yet, we're guessing it will only be a matter of time before those figures start to go Google's way. Google is attempting to bring a "first-class browser for the Mac," and given that Apple itself is dabbling in the browser world with Safari, we're confident that Cupertino will take issue with that challenge. The company has stated that it's "proud" of the speed seen on the Mac side, and we're told that on most modern Macs, the browser launches before the icon even has time to bounce once in the dock.
Chrome has only been out for a few months over on the Windows side, and while it hasn't garnered the kind of following that Firefox has quite yet, we're guessing it will only be a matter of time before those figures start to go Google's way. Google is attempting to bring a "first-class browser for the Mac," and given that Apple itself is dabbling in the browser world with Safari, we're confident that Cupertino will take issue with that challenge. The company has stated that it's "proud" of the speed seen on the Mac side, and we're told that on most modern Macs, the browser launches before the icon even has time to bounce once in the dock.
For more details on this beta release of Google Chrome for Mac, read on in the Google Mac blog or watch this video from one of our engineers, Mike Pinkerton:As for Linux, the Chrome Beta also aims for speed, stability and security, and that means tight integration with native GTK themes. Naturally, the open source community has helped out a lot here, and in case that wasn't enough, Google is also launching extensions for Linus and Windows (in Beta). As of now, over 300 extensions are available, and if that grows larger, you can expect quite a few individuals that are used to using Firefox extensions to give this one a try. In fact, why don't you? Are any of you Mac/Linux users thinking of giving this a download? It's free, after all.
Just as important, we've had quite a bit of help from the open source community. More than 50 open source contributors have worked on Chromium and they've been especially helpful on delivering our Linux version of Google Chrome. For more details on the beta release of Google Chrome for Linux, check out the Chromium blog.
If you're on a PC or a Linux machine, you can check out more than 300 extensions in the gallery, including a few cool, useful and cute extensions. Extensions aren't quite beta-quality on Mac yet, but you will be able to preview them on a developer channel soon. And if you're a web developer, you can learn more about writing extensions for Google Chrome on the Chromium blog.
