No, it’s not ready yet. But it does at least look like the Mac release of Chrome is getting ready for prime time.
Now, let me be clear: I am not testing out that rather bogus “Developer Release” of Chrome that Google announced to placate users last month, I’m testing out the daily builds of Chromium, which you can find for the Mac here. How different are they? Well, in look in and feel, a lot.
Just look at the difference in the start pages. The Developer Release of Chrome for Mac has a ho-hum old-style history overview page. The new builds of Chromium feature the new, sexy layout. This includes thumbnails of pages that you can move around and pin down. And because the build also includes favicons (which the Developer Release only does in certain places), it also includes the ability to switch to “list view.”
But more importantly, it has the new “Recent activities” and “Tips and Suggestions” windows below the thumbnail section on the launch page. This Tips and Suggestions page is particularly interesting because it does offer up sites that I am finding to be generally interesting based on my browsing.
The “History” area of Chromium (where you see your browsing history) is also looking great thanks to the favicons. And search is working in that section.
When you launch an “Incognito” window, the resulting window looks right as it has a dark blue trim with a spy man logo, indicating that the browsing session is private.
Overall, the browser feels very snappy and most sites seem to load and render just fine. Dragging tabs around works perfectly, as done “ripping” one off into its own window. The one major thing still missing is the lack of a Flash plug-in, which prevents sites like YouTube from working.
So again, if you want to use Chrome for the Mac, forget about that Developer Release and get one of the new builds of Chromium. It’s not perfect yet, but it looks like it’s getting pretty close.
I am using Chrome for a few months now and I think it’s better in some ways. Though without the 3rd party plugins in FireFox, in a way it helps me clear the clutter. Less widgets, and maybe more focus on browsing websites.
u r right Darren….
Thanks Finance Master! I bet you are really nice.
Hey stop impersonating this dude!
totally agree with that…i use firefox for firebug so I can do my job… but love chromes feel, look and speed. i sort of feel like im cheating when i use another browser other than firefox. FF 3.5 definitly has made further improvements in the speed department. Overall FF wins when i balance all pros and cons.
Dude, just type “First! P.S. check out AD EXCEL!” and spare us the fake commentary.
I don’t agree. I see a valid comment. Nothing wrong with that.
fake?
I agree with you Darren. I was a long time user of Firefox and loved all of the add-ons, but I started toying with Safari beta when it came out and wound up going back to it over and over. I love the cleaner interface and the lack of “distractions”. It helps me to focus on browsing, getting what I need from the net and … sometimes I even “finish” what I wanted to do now.
That’s one reason I’m really looking forward to using Chrome. It’s a much simpler interface that I think will make my browsing more productive. Whether it will be a better experience than using Safari, I don’t know.
Unfortunately, my Mac is dying a slow death as I type this, locking up constantly, and it’s out of warranty. I’m considering getting a PC that will offer an upgrade to Windows 7, just for a change of pace, so by the time Chrome for Mac comes out, I may be using Chrome for PC.
To T. – Safari on MacOS X 10.4 and 10.5 is a bit faster than Firefox 3.5, especially on older Macs. Safari 4 is quite useable on a PPC G3 400 iMac running 10.4.11, Firefox not so much. If you want a simpler interface in Safari, customize the menu, throw out what you don’t like. I’ve never known a Mac to die a slow death, either its on or not. If you’d like help troubleshooting please write me at macrx2009@me.com.
Your Mac is dying a slow death? Locking up all of the time? Why not reinstall your OS?
I’m testing out a version of Chrome called Safari. The difference with the real Chrime is that the tabs are under the Toolbar instead of on top.
Educate yourself a bit more before posting. Chrome has a completely different Javascript engine than Safari.
@Tomas Sancio: Your comment makes you look like an idiot. Learn more about chrome and actually use it. You will see that it is both different and IMO, far better than Safari.
Far better than Safari on OS X? S4 is a pretty good browser and quickly replaced Firefox for me. The rendering speed is excellent and the debugger is good (though not quite Firebug).
Unless you’re on PPC, in which case Chromium is not an option.
I’m trying Chromium on the Mac. It kills Safari 4 for one simple reason. Tabs. I can’t stand how Safari insists on opening links in new WINDOWS unless I Cmd-Click.
Hello??? Tabs were invented for a reason!
Try this in terminal to solve your problem:
defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true
ever thought of right clicking on the link and select open in new tab? Just saying
All the nice things you are fussing about are also in my “bogus Developer Release” of Chrome4Mac (Version 3.0.192.0). Better do your homework, before you complain.
It’s getting close for Linux too. Same process daily update of chromium. Flash extension works but crash a lot.
The latest builds of chrome for mac has flash capability. It is disabled by default though. you can enable it through a command line switch
http://www.manu...ash-enable/363/
Crashes a lot after enabling flash though. But as the article says the browser is shaping up quite nicely. I have a page where i post weekly updates about chrome on mac. it is quite fascinating to see a browser being built from the ground up. http://www.manu...r-mac-os-x/230/
The Linux build also includes features not found in the Windows or Mac versions, such as more native theming support, grabbing the colors from the desktop.
Chrome is shiny
gr8 article
yeah..really chrome is getting better daily. i have been using chrome since it was launched. i like it more dan all other browsers
Maybe is more clear if Chrome looks for Windows like Mac and others.
I was so bummed when it only came out for windows.. The current mac version is pretty good.. Looking forward to the polish.
i’m on chromium for windows and now it has a big bug whit the redirects and that’s all, pretty strong browser
Chrome is great, it is useful to just *browse* with getting carried away with, and slowed down by, all the extras that the other browsers have.
I can’t seem to import any of my bookmarks which is a drag, but I guess that’s due to it being a developer release.
Keep it up Google
can’t wait for chrome for linux
It’s already there, if you use Ubuntu. Nightly builds here:
https://launchp...ly/+archive/ppa
They’re pretty good, but if you’re not using an SSE processor (Pentium 4 or later) these builds may not work for you.
Google and Apple in the same post. The sun is shining on MG’s head today…
Actually, it’s cloudy here.
Seems as though everything’s aligned for a RTL language
I’ve been using the chromium nightlies for linux for months now. They are really starting to shape up. Looks like we are getting close to a release.
Do you work for Techcrunch or Google. Cant believe you can take nightly builds and test it.
Didn’t you check the link in the article for nightlies ? that is the chromium build site operated by google and yes google has made available nightlies for a long time now
Still far too dodgy for daily usage. A few pages don’t even load (e.g. my local nagios webinterface).
It’s getting better but it’s still a long way to go.
I’ve just finished a portable Version of Google Chrome for Mac OS X
: http://redir.ec/Fw1F
And in related news, Chromium for Linux is starting to look really appealing, too; good enough that I’m using it as my main web browser right now, even if I find the history behaviour a little weird. :<
Has anyone seen Stainless for Mac OS X?
Don’t wait for Chrome – go get it here: http://stainlessapp.com
To kind of repeat one comment that’s not received all the attention it deserved:
One doesn’t need to use the nightly builds of chromium to see these features.
Chrome’s development release also includes them all. I remarked them yesterday in 3.0.192. I don’t know how long 192 has been out.
Sorry, MG, you got it completely wrong this time
Well first of all, I have the dev release and don’t see any of these. It gets refreshed weekly, no? Second, that doesn’t change anything about the post, that’s a minor nit. Point is, Chrome is getting closer. I hope these are on the Dev release.
It’s incredibly nice to have 3 good, stable, standards-based browsers. I’m using FireFox 3.5, Safari 4.0 & Chrome for Mac. All of which have a very clean finished look & great usability.
I’m not complaining…
When FF 3.5 was released I became a born-again Firefox user relishing in the speed. In my enthusiasm I started adding plug-ins. Now a few weeks later Firefox has started to slow and hesitate and I’m back to Chrome on pc and mac. Chromium on my old-ish Macbook really flies.
Does anyone know if Chrome will start backing up my settings and data on the cloud (so I can use them across computers) any time soon?
I’m not happy with the feel of Chromium. And it doesn’t properly resolve website addresses. I host development sites on my laptop using the top-level .local domain, such as “site.local”, but trying to go to this domain does a google search instead. All other browsers behave properly.
Please file a bug.
http://dev.chro...ac-linux-builds
There have been bugs filed about this already. The current behavior is as intended. “.local” isn’t an official TLD. When a user keys in “site.local” the Omnibox assumes it is a search. The Accidental Search Infobar should appear after the search is performed, and if it is used, we’ll do the right thing ever after. Another way of forcing this behavior the very first time is to prepend a scheme or append “/”. All of this has been stated on the bugs.
You imply that the dev channel is a month out of
date. It’s not; it gets updated weekly. It’s a bit
more stable than the daily builds you point to.
More info at
http://dev.chro...ved/dev-channel
Disclaimer: I’m a Chrome developer.
Right, weekly. And it doesn’t have the changes I mention, which are the key point.
As another Chromium developer I also found your post pretty misleading. Why is the dev channel release “rather bogus” when it has updated a number of times since the announcement (which is the only time you reference it)? Why do you specifically recommend people use untested builds that don’t auto-update, when you are apparently aware that the normal build _does_ update, _is_ tested, and will doubtless have these same features in a few days at most?
I’m glad you’re enjoying the progress being made on Mac Chromium, but encouraging users to install nightlies can cause exactly the kind of support burden that we’re trying to avoid.
Wow! Another browser!!!!! Just what the world needed. Yawn.
WOW if Arrington puffs our his cheeks his chin ACTUALLY disappears – http://gawker.com/5316271/
Some of the multi-touch features are still missing for those who have multi-touch track pads. Specifically, three finger swipe up and down to jump to top/bottom of the page. Hopefully these will be entered before a release.
Two finger scrolling does work, thankfully; I’m not sure I could use it otherwise.
looks good
Always room for a new browser.
Does anyone know if this will work on Tiger? Or only on Leopard?
Why would anyone use a web browser without an ad blocker?
cause ad blockers are mean
Here’s a quick and simple ruby script to update your chrome install. I have this running daily to always stay up to date with the daily builds.
http://gist.github.com/148775
Apple releases a dev build of Safari an MG sez it’s starting to look polished?
MS releases polished software an MG sez it looks like shit?
Actually Chromium on Mac is also lacking on the bookmarking front: until yesterday you could only add a bookmark.
In the 3.0.195 release they added deleting a bookmark (yay!) although bookmarklets, drag n drop into the bookmark bar and reordering bookmarks is still a no go.
nda
On Linux (Ubuntu) work fine
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