Yesterday, there were a number of stories suggesting that a beta version of Chrome for Mac was due in early December. These stemmed from CNET’s Stephen Shankland digging around a Chrome Extension Google Group page where Nick Baum, a Chrome Product Manager, made what seemed to be a very clear comment. “The earlier you switch, the more time you will have to polish your experience for our Beta launch in early December,” Baum wrote two days ago. But as we all know, sometimes team members talk out of place, and in doing, so set expectations too high. So is a beta version of Chrome for Mac really due in early December?
We asked Google about it and here’s what they had to say, “As I’m sure you know, we generally don’t comment about timelines for releasing specific features or products. But we’ve been quoted a few times saying Chrome for mac should be out by the end of the year.” I was then pointed to an Reuters article from September that quoted Google’s Product Management Vice President, Sundar Pichai, as saying that Chrome for Mac would be released by year’s end.
So it would appear that everything is still definitely on track or Google would have simply given me a “no comment.” But you’ll notice Pichai didn’t originally specify that this would be a beta version, so I asked if it was safe to assume that it will be a beta version and not a final, stable release that will be out. “Yep, that would be a safe assumption. Kind of the same model as the Windows version — launch it in beta first then take it out of beta (upgrade to the stable channel) when it’s ready,” a Google spokesperson wrote to us in an email.
So basically, yes, a beta version of Chrome for Mac will be coming in a matter of weeks. It will drop sometime in December.
This is great news considering that after continually improving the Chromium (the open source browser behind Chrome) builds for months now, there has seemed to be some setbacks recently in terms of both performance and wonky UI elements. The situation got so bad that I stopped using the daily builds of Chromium and switched over to the actual Chrome for Mac dev version. This version has been impressively stable for a few weeks now, and it auto-updates when a new stable build is ready.
If you’re not using it yet, you should check it out. Seeing as it’s pretty much the middle of November already, it’s likely very close to what the beta build will be. The only major element that does not appear to be working right now is the bookmark manager. But when you first install Chrome, it should ask you to import your bookmarks from Safari or Firefox, and this works fine. The build numbers for Chromium and the Chrome dev builds are not far off either.
Can’t wait! I have been using the dev version and it has been very stable so far
yeah, I agree…
The dev version has been REALLY stable, I dont see why they didnt release it a bit earlier…
Okay guys. Hold your horses just yet. Like us we are happy for this release but this could be another fake propaganda like what we have a couple of months ago..
As for now, google is still not releasing any updates for the release. If it’s next week, they would have at least release a pre-announcement, would they?
http://bit.ly/c...e-release-again
WOW MAC is experiencing a taste of Chrome.. finally
I agree. Great news. Chrome is such a great browser.
ie8’s user interface is way better than chrome. chrome was designed fisher-price or something, horrid color and design.
did i mention chrome has 3% marketshare, about the same as mac computers? i guess its fitting that chrome is now on macs.
very helpful comment.
it is because a lot of people ignore IE8 even though its user interface is better (objective) than all the other browsers. but its made by microsoft so some wont even look at it.
totally objective. it’s a scientific fact.
LOLZ
I want MG & MA to have a slicing sarcasm contest. It should be a key component at the Crunchies.
IE8 is not available for Mac, therefore irrelevant to this article.
Plus, ‘quality’ does not directly correspond with “market share”. Never has, never will.
Your opinion is purely subjective – it’s certainly not objective, check a dictionary – and I think a lot of people would disagree with it.
If Microsoft made a browser that stood head and shoulders above the competition then I’d use it. As it stands, IE has lagged behind the entirety of its competition for a long, long time in terms of performance, standards compliance, extensibility… you name it. It would take something fairly spectacular to get people to switch back, whatever your strange assertions about the UI may be.
You are now my new hero! Your “objective” comments about your browser of choice (I think it was IE8, or something), was absolu…
…sorry, fell asleep there. Now what were you saying?
I for one hate IE8. Note because it is from microsoft, but I just hate the GUI.
Apparently I am not objective.
I would actually love it if MS built a Mac version of their browser. I design for the web and would love to test it in the browser without having to buy a Windows machine (cuz I would die inside just a little bit)
Just to stay on topic here- I also have the dev Chrome and it is solid.
trolly-olly-oxenfree
Helpful comment indeed. He’s a PC and IE crashes are his idea.
IE 8 and Windows 7–copied by the Mac, according to their uninformed executives at least, but designed by a committee of randomly uninformed customers. Gee, let’s buy a copy now before they sell out…
Er, by^h^h
Chrome rocks ..I am using the same on my windows . Can’t wait to check the one for Mac .
Sites don’t stay big in Chrome – when you increase the size of the image/font to make the site fill the frame. But they do in Firefox.
Know what I mean? Weird it doesn’t.
This is the ONLY reason I’m not using Chrome.
Just saw the version number in the screen… come on Google. Version 4??? I don’t like such a new program having such a high version number, heck Windows is only at version 7 (well 6.1 to be exact). I suppose this is to make Chrome look more mature?
Don’t wanna rant about Chrome at all, good browser and good thing it will be available for Mac soon – I just don’t like the versioning.
yeah, they just want it to keep pace with the windows version. but agree that even those are quickly going through the numbers, it has only been a little over a year.
Version numbers on Chrome have always annoyed me too. I mean the Mac version isn’t even released and its version number has already caught up to Safari.
Did nobody figure out it’s Windows “7″ so it may be perceived by the massive passive as one step newer/better than OSX 10.”6″… just like XP was released when OSX was released.
That’s why Silverlight is in a rush to v4 in less than a few years. Don’t be surprised when it suddenly catches up or even jumps to v7 or v10 or something to match Flash Player.
Silverlight 2010?
Thank goodness. I can’t wait for the damn thing to be out so that MG can stop posting about semi-weekly updates on the glacial progress of Chrome for Mac. You’d think that Chrome for Mac was the most important tech event of the decade, based on the sheer number of MG posts on the topic.
Amen, brother, amen.
Dead on arrival for me. Mainly because they have that idiotic GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent always running as a background process. It’s like a fricken virus, can’t get rid of it.
Why can they just act like any other app, when you launch the program, THEN it checks to see if there is an update. Why have a daemon running in the background all the time when you’re not even running any Google application?
Sorry, not going to happen for me.
If the updater is like a virus, no wonder they don’t have a Mac version out yet…
“they have that idiotic GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent always running as a background process”
This hasn’t been true for months.
http://google-o...-scheduled.html
I’ve been using the dev version for Mac almost exclusively since it was announced. Although a bit rough around the edges, it’s still one of the better browsers. At least in my humble and “objective” opinion.
Sorry, too much Google, isn’t anybody concerned?
Google is taking over the internet, we can’t permit they run the entire show, and next week an OS too?
people wake up, google is monopolizing the internet.
absolutely. and Goog is talking now about abandoning HTTP for SPDY, so they can take over even more of the web and shove custom advertisements to us even faster.
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooring
If you don’t want to use Google’s stuff… don’t use it. Nobody is forcing you to and there is plenty of competition.
Couldn’t agree more. Full disclosure: I would turn my life over to Google.
That’s December 2010.
Version 4 is beta. It will always be beta. It’s Google.
Wow very cooool.
Only problem I see right now with the Mac version of Chrome is that Java doesn’t work right. I have to switch over to Safari for that.
Meh. I’ve used Chrome for Mac and I don’t see what’s so exciting about it.
I tried the dev build of Chrome for the Mac and discovered two issues:
1) It has no Apple Event support that could be used by AppleScript, Python, Ruby, or Objective-C to interact with other applications or the OS.
2) It does not support the contextual Services feature of Snow Leopard.
Safari does have both of these abilities.
hope the beta works with facebook because the developer version just stopped working on fb.
If fb does a faceplant, can I get a vers for my extended family to use?
It was said that the current beta for Mac is fairly feature complete. I see no option in preferences for automatically choosing a new tab if one clicks on a link and requests that it “open in a new tab”.
We don’t intend to ever add such an option in any version.
can’t wait for this…
It’s not ready for primetime, tho i would like it to be. My observations:
- No master password – so basic, and so stupid that they haven’t built that.
- (subjective) while chrome seems snappier than ff, whenever i’m running chrome, the performance of other applications running on my mac seems to suffer. is this real or my imagination?
We don’t intend to add a Master Password as such. See crbug.com/1397#c104 . Master passwords do not increase your security, and we aren’t interested in playing security theater games.
You can download it today, its a preview tho, nor a beta but it works very good, I’ve being using it for a month now and cant complain, some plugins are not working but no big deal.. here is the link:
http://www.goog...dev.html?dl=mac
take care!
Anyone know if it’s going to work on PowerPC chips, or only the Intel macs?
direct link to dev
http://dl.googl...oogleChrome.dmg