According to a message on one of the development mailing lists, Google seems to be planning a beta of Chrome to appear sometime in December. There isn't any set date, and the message wasn't even addressing the release of a beta for Mac, but Nick Baum, a Google Chrome product manager, also the author of the mailing list post, let word fly. "Why make the switch now? The earlier you switch, the more time you will have
to polish your experience for our Beta launch in early December. We realize
this means dropping Mac support for a couple of weeks, but we already have
people working on that. If you prioritize the Windows and Linux versions,
we'll bring you cross-platform parity as soon as we can!"
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Awesome - I've been running the developer nighties for quite some time. For me the major feature I like is the process isolation for tabs and plugins. I hope that some time in the future we'll see Apple adopt it but until that day, when Chrome final ships I'll move from Safari to Chrome on the first day :-)
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
I just can't stand Chrome's UI :/
Well unfortunately mate Firefox is going in that direction as well. The only one left will be Safari, assuming they don't make the move. Personally I prefer the tabs at the top and the simplified UI of Chrome.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-06
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-06
Member since:
2005-07-26
Member since:2009-10-04
It is nice that it provides a real menu, but unfortunately, a menu is not terribly useful in a browser, and it means that you can't take advantage of Fitt's law to quickly switch tabs like you can on Windows on Linux (assuming there is no panel on the top of the screen).
Member since:
2009-09-17
from the post in the link it seems that the linux port might be entering beta soon as well, so its not just the mac version. It will be great to get stable linux and mac version and extensions are looking like they are getting close as well. Next year could be a big one for Chrome
Member since:
2007-06-12
seriously, whats the deal with Google on this? why has this taken so long, why have so many versions of Chrome come out on Windows and nothing for the other platforms?
This is really silly considering Webkit is extremely portable and the majority of Google devs and all the browser devs are all using Mac and Linux machines (and mostly Mac for the webkit build tools).
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2008-12-26
I don't think the excellent linux nightly builds I've been running for a long while are "nothing". They just haven't stamped on the "beta" label, but they work great.
Member since:2005-07-11
This is one of the downsides to writing your own GUI layer separately on each platform, instead of using a portable GUI toolkit like QT.
Member since:
2009-04-23
I don't understand why they didn't just write a native Mac version to be released and developed parallel to the Win, and Linux versions. Why do a "port" in the first place? Theres plenty of other software devs that have alot less fundage than Google and manage to pull this off.
Member since:2005-06-29
This is NOT a port. That's the whole point. They ARE writing NATIVE versions for Linux and Mac OS X, that's why it's taking them so long.
Firefox produces ports; that's why up until now Firefox didn't use a lot of the Mac OS X-specific technologies like spellcheck and keyring. Chrome is doing native, and will support these things straight away.
Firefox still feels like a bad port on the Mac - after 5 years. And you expect Google to come up with a 100% working native Mac app in only a few months?
Edited 2009-11-12 12:08 UTC
Member since:2005-07-08
As any good developer knows, the secret of developing truly portable software is to make it so since the beginning.
Google decided to bet in Windows first, which makes sense as the platform with the biggest user base, and then target the remaining platforms.
I wonder why they didn't developed for the three versions in parallel. Lack of resources?
Member since:2005-09-27
Member since:2005-07-22
Member since:2005-09-27
Member since:2005-07-22
They didn't think Chrome would have the success now has. It is already more used than Opera in a lot less time, that's something remarcable in my book.
Don't you think that being developed by the most well known search engine creator, and marketed by them is the reason it's getting popular? It is a fine browser, but it's still lacking and oversimplified. I don't get the current trends of complete overdesign of web browsers with each release.
What matters about a browser is simple:
1. Fast
2. Responsive
3. Secure
4. Accessible
5. Extendable
6. Standard rendering support
To which I add certain functionality that for me is paramount:
a) Ad-block filter
b) Password saving
c) Form completion with your information (name, mail)
d) Good file downloading support
e) Good bookmarks implementation
f) Alt-D to got to URL bar
g) Selectable address from URL bar
h) Integrated
Give me all that and I'm happy. I usually use Opera or Konqueror which both give me more or less all of that. I tried Rekonq and I think it's going to replace Konqueror in the near future (it's very similar to Chrome but way more integrated into KDE).
Don't get me wrong, I like Chrome, but it doesn't give me more than I already have. And what it gives me, it feels akward, too googlified for my taste, too Web 2.0.
Edited 2009-11-12 18:58 UTC
Member since:2005-09-27
Member since:2009-07-28
What matters about a browser is simple:
1. Fast
2. Responsive
3. Secure
4. Accessible
5. Extendable
6. Standard rendering support
Okay, it's all that...
a) Ad-block filter
I can see that a lot of people would want that. Though I prefer the more arcane "mental-elimination" trick, I can understand that most people don't.
b) Password saving
c) Form completion with your information (name, mail)
d) Good file downloading support
e) Good bookmarks implementation
f) Alt-D to got to URL bar
g) Selectable address from URL bar
h) Integrated
Except for 'c' (which might have less than desirable effects from a security standpoint (depending on the implementation) I think Chrome has all these bases covered. 'Good' is a matter of taste, of course.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2006-06-09
just my 2 cents (oh yeah):
- macosx already has safari which is also webkit based, very fast java script, light, and very mac integrated. its not the best and all, but pretty close to chrome and pretty good well
- a lot of ppl take Google for the new Apple. that is, invent reasons why its so good. like "dont need good bookmarks!" "dont need completion/saving, remember ur 30 passwords by heart its good for security!" "dont need adblock, my brain is so great i learnt NOT TO SEE THEM!" the latter is actually an upper post in this thread, and shows the problem pretty well lol
- i use firefox on windows, safari on macosx, and chrome on linux. its that way on linux because, well, firefox is kind of slow. I still miss the features, but the web is more enjoyable with decent speed.
Member since:2005-07-07
You say that Chrome lacks features, but unlike Safari, Chrome will shortly have a plugin architecture for things like Adblock.
I've been using the alpha Xmarks plugin for Chromium on OS X which is a bit rough round the edges, but works. To sync Xmarks with Safari you need a separate application.
Apple, perhaps in its usual state of keeping things a little too closed down, forgot to implement one of the biggest reasons for using Firefox and ensured that Safari would never compete on Windows.
Member since:
2006-02-15
I saw several people complaining about missing Adblock and Flashblock extensions etc. There actually are such, just download the developer channel version of Chrome which has extension and user script support and download whatever you want from userscripts.org.
Some scripts I personally use:
Adblock+: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/46974
Flashblock: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/46673
They have so far worked perfectly fine for me.
Member since:
2007-06-22
I still find the scrolling performance on OS X noticeably worse than with Firefox and Safari when using the touchpad. I've never actually realized how much such a detail can lessen my enjoyment using a browser until actually I started using the OS X developer channel (although truth to be told I also managed to endure Firefox 3 with its abyssal scrolling performance). Hopefully they'll manage to optimize the responsible code. For a browser which prides itself with its speed it would be quite embarrassing to be released with such an obvious regression compared to the other browsers.