Google Chrome for Mac (beta) available now

Jonny Evans
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December 08, 2009
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Google has today released the Mac beta of its Google Chrome browser, though this release is not feature-identical with the existing Windows version.  For instance, extensions aren't available to Mac users(yet).  Google also released a Linux Beta as well.

The company promises its browser will run websites and applications at “lightning speed”. Initial low impact testing suggests the browser to be relatively stable on the Mac.

In a move perhaps borrowed from Apple’s Safari, or Opera, you can also visit your favourite websites easily from the New Tab page. When you open a new tab, the sites you visit most often are readily available.

There’s also just one box, which lets you navigate to specified URLs as well as engage in search tasks.

A recent Google Chrome team blog post stresses the speed of the browser, looking at the inner workings of DNS pre-resolution, the V8 JavaScript engine, and DOM bindings. “In a future post, we'll also cover other important aspects of Google Chrome's speed, such as WebKit and UI responsiveness,” that item states.

Comments (12)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 9:08am

I'm using it right now, and it's fast!

JohnnyK | December 08, 2009 - 9:09am

I don't quite remember, but didn't Chrome always have the 'favorites' page even before it was added to Safari?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 10:04am

YES - Chrome had this feature before Safari 4 beta was even released.  This is a google original.  Seth is usually the fanboy, I'm surprised, Johnny.

admin | December 08, 2009 - 10:28am

can't I be a fanboy of both?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 9:23am

Google Chrome still 1) does not support contextual Services in Snow Leopard, and 2) it's scripting support is just the default Cocoa stuff, with no support for getting and setting URLs in documents or tabs.

Andras Hatvani (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 9:29am

I just ran 3 JavaScript browser performance tests in both, Safari and Chrome beta and surprisingly in two of the tests Chrome beta performed nearly at the speed of Safari and in one test it clearly outperformed the default browser:

* Sunspider (http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider.html) Safari > Chrome | 5%

* Peacekeeper (http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper/) Safari > Chrome | 5%

* V8 (http://v8.googlecode.com/svn/data/benchmarks/v5/run.html) Chrome > Safari | 60%

Although these are excellent numbers from a beta browser, it's not enough for me to switch from Safari.

luxlamf (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 9:56am

OH Please work WELL!!! So tired of the once again Staggering and waiting in Safari and Firefox is SO Big and Glompy now its Useless as well.

n00b (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 10:28am

my big problem were the 10's of chrome helper processes that bit-by-bit ground my system to a halt. if these are gone i think i'll be making the switch from safari!

also noticed that chrome on the mac was terrible for flash... hope this has changed too.

 

...all of these experiences were from the dev version so i wasn't too worried and have had my fingers crossed for the beta!

look (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 12:33pm

I got around 20 chrome helper processes!!!

 

n00b (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 3:49pm

that's what i was afraid of... guess i'll be waiting till i try this again

Zedd (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 1:13pm

FAIL

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 08, 2009 - 6:16pm

10.5...assholes my 10.4 system is still pretty stable and i won't upgrade in the middle of a production jsut to try a beta, tho i realy wanted to