Chrome available for Mac? Yeah, a month ago

Seth Weintraub
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June 06, 2009
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We're not sure why but everyone seems to be jumping on the "Chome is now available for Mac" story.  A few points:

  • It is still a not-ready-for-prime-time version. Sergey Brin isn't even using it on Mac (but is on Linux)
  • It has been publically available for a month, the only difference is that Google put a pretty download page up yesterday and it has the Chrome tag.
  • It still isn't nearly complete feature-wise.  It doesn't run Flash (including Google' s YouTube), you can't print from it and can't change your search provider away from Google (evil?).
  • It is only now getting publicity because of a certain someone.
  • That being said, it is a great first attempt, or was back a month ago when it debuted, and should make a nice addition to your Mac browser arsenal.  It is especially good at being your second Gmail account.  It is also Webkit like Safari which should be mutually beneficial to Apple in making websites standards compliant

 

Comments (11)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | June 06, 2009 - 7:37am

Yeah...not sure why all the excitement recently. I have been using dev builds of Chrome on my Mac for weeks. I guess when Kevin Rose posts something on Digg it has to be the latest and greatest news right?

Heywood Jablowme (not verified) | June 06, 2009 - 7:46am

Was just going to say...Kevin Rose puts it on Digg, all of the lemming reporters follow. Look at MacSurfer today...you'd think that Google just announced Chrome!

Nice work btw, exposing that BS

Miles (not verified) | June 06, 2009 - 7:49am

I believe this is in response to all of the other posts on other websites that seem to glorify the "release" of "Chrome" for Mac.

I agree.

Lucky (not verified) | June 06, 2009 - 7:54am

Is actually is Google Chrome. It is a alpha version of Google Chrome.

But yes, technically, is isn't much of a difference between this and chromium.

GR (not verified) | June 06, 2009 - 9:32am

Seth, It appears you woke up cranky today. In an case, you are factually incorrect on at least a couple of points.

First, the new version available is officially branded 'Google Chrome' despite the unrelated screen shot shown in your article. As you can see it also has the Chrome icon.

http://bit.ly/zA05I

Secondly, what differentiates this build from the previous Chromium nighlty builds is that it is part of the official Google dev channel releases of Chrome. This means that it is now auto-updating to the latest dev version. This obviates the need for developers or those who want to try it out from having to download and re-install nightly.

Lastly it will now automatically send crash reports (if you allow it) which will greatly help the developers track down bugs and crashers.

While at the moment what you see is functionally identical to the Chromium nightly builds, I suspect we will see rapid progress in the functionality and I can count on the latest version being there when I click that Chrome icon in my dock, In any case its an important milestone if nothing else.

Maybe you should have actually tried it before you wrote a rant about nothing?

Joel Rogers (not verified) | June 06, 2009 - 12:12pm

It seems like you're the one who is ranting about nothing. Feature wise, to the end user, this is an incomplete release that has not changed from Chromium except for under the hood work. He's simply trying to get some truth out there considering all these other reports are just like, "HAY GUYS ITS FINALLY DONE AND OUT!" which is the farthest thing from the truth, and though it's functional when it's not crashing, there are still lots of things to be ironed out.

I really doubt Google wants word being spread this is the finished Chrome for Mac like so many people are doing.

Joel Rogers (not verified) | June 06, 2009 - 12:12pm

It seems like you're the one who is ranting about nothing. Feature wise, to the end user, this is an incomplete release that has not changed from Chromium except for under the hood work. He's simply trying to get some truth out there considering all these other reports are just like, "HAY GUYS ITS FINALLY DONE AND OUT!" which is the farthest thing from the truth, and though it's functional when it's not crashing, there are still lots of things to be ironed out.

I really doubt Google wants word being spread this is the finished Chrome for Mac like so many people are doing.

Shahji (not verified) | June 07, 2009 - 10:09am

give a try to stainless http://www.stainlessapp.com/. Does pretty much everything Chrome does and does it NOW. Lightweight, Beautiful, always being update, FAST, to me faster than Safari.

You won't be disappointed.

Shahji (not verified) | June 07, 2009 - 10:12am

try stainless http://www.stainlessapp.com/. Does pretty much everything Chrome does and does it NOW. Lightweight, Beautiful, always being updated, FAST, to me faster than Safari.

You won't be disappointed.

Derek (not verified) | June 07, 2009 - 11:31am

Just what the web dev world needs is *another* browser to worry about.

I don't understand why Google did this, really. They could have used the Mozilla base and just heavily modified it to suit any of their own purposes. Or bought Firefox and be done with it.

Ryan (not verified) | June 07, 2009 - 3:36pm

Some folks jealous much? Grow up, this article is an embarrassment to your whole site.