MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

 MacDailyNews Poll

Deal of the Day

5 Day Most Commented

Opinion Archive

Current Headlines

Latest Joy of Tech

  • Latest Joy of Tech!

MacNN

AppleInsider

Macworld UK

TUAW

MacRumors

Yahoo! Finance AAPL

iTunes Top 10 Albums

Mac OS X Downloads

Sun, Nov 08, 2009 - 12:27 AM EST  —  AAPL: 194.34 (+0.3099, +0.16%)  |  NASDAQ: 2112.44 (+7.12, +0.34%)

Google polishes Chrome browser for Apple Mac
Thursday, July 16, 2009 - 11:08 AM EST

"No, it’s not ready yet. But it does at least look like the Mac release of Chrome is getting ready for prime time," MG Siegler reports for TechCrunch.

"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," Siegler reports.

"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," Siegler reports.

Full article with screenshots here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Fred Mertz" for the heads up.]

Bookmark and Share

Always -- Free ground shipping with orders over $50 at the Apple Store.

Reader Feedback: = registered.
Unregistered users: Feedback from multiple usernames are subject to deletion. Off-topic and posts from suspected astroturfers will be removed.

Jul 16, 09 - 10:17 am Comment from: TowerTone

" Hey, Mac, can I polish that Chrome fer ya?"

The browser wars heat up.

(I'm picturing two 'Far Side' characters)

Jul 16, 09 - 10:44 am Comment from: Gabriel

The one major thing still missing is the lack of a Flash plug-in,

...once again reminding the world why allowing closed, proprietary plug-ins to dictate the browser experience is an extremely bad idea for a truly open, interoperable internet.

Jul 16, 09 - 10:45 am Comment from: Davecc

"Overall, the browser feels very snappy"

Jul 16, 09 - 10:54 am Comment from: MrScrith

I'll have to try it on my mac, I like multiple browsers and regularly have both Safari and Firefox open at the same time. (Safari for trusted browsing and Firefox for the everyday world, it has NoScript and Adblock).

Jul 16, 09 - 11:02 am Comment from: DWJ

THIS is the browser I USE.

Dave

<http://lh5.ggpht.com/_Lvq1G-hR9Gc/RvE7Ivf1iLI/AAAAAAAAEvw/4Ys_6Gj2E3g/bowzer.jpg>

Jul 16, 09 - 11:03 am Comment from: DWJ

Dang. Left out some tags. Sorry.

Jul 16, 09 - 11:29 am Comment from: Safari4IsGarbage

Looking forward to trying this after the P.O.S that is Safari 4.

Still waiting for an UNINSTALLER, Micros....um, I mean Apple.....

Jul 16, 09 - 11:36 am Comment from: MacTony

uhhhhh, I think that I will stay with Firefox and Safari. Thanks anyway

Jul 16, 09 - 12:17 pm Comment from: LordRobin

@Safari4IsGarbage:
What's your problem with Safari 4, or do you just like to bitch? Firefox is a perfectly reasonable alternative to Safari. Use it, or one of the other alternatives, and STFU. Me, my only complaint about Safari 4 is that they removed the Snapback feature for regular browsing. Other than that, I love it.

I don't understand why the existing Flash plugin can't be accessed by Chrome. I mean, you only install Flash once, right? You don't need one plugin for Safari and another for Firefox.

------RM

Jul 16, 09 - 12:41 pm Comment from: krquet

Yes, wake me up again when someone other than an Ad-reliant business unit 'decides to build a free browser for sake of charity' that will render web sites with forms etc. to fill out credit card information and my DOB, IP, geo-tagging, browsing habits, emails and/or income etc.

Here's a news flash for many Google cheer-boys who may not realise: Picasa for Mac, as a tiny example, runs an 'updater script' even when the program is not running. In other words, it makes contact frequently with a server in the cloud, claimed by Google to be an update server. Problem is, they don't ask you to authorise this contact and there is no option available to disable it unless you happen to have a firewall turned on (littleSnitch etc.) that can block this. Matter of fact, if you didn't have the firewall clue you in, you'd probably never even be aware of it, as Google simply decided never to notify you other than in the legal fine prints. And Picasa is just one of the slew of Google offender apps that transmit in real time your IP and location non-stop for years to Google. Chew on that!

Every little post you thought you posted anonymously, someone may or may not keep track of that directly, but sure keeps a record of when your computer was on with which MAC address enabled, on what date and with which IP, unless you know how to mask some of the sensitive info. Now only if someone is required to put the two and two with your anonymous posting and a certain IP with a certain MAC ID sometime in the future for whatever reason.. well.. yeah, Google the rest.

And people have the audacity to call the Apple fans the sheep!
Please, save yourselves, boycott anything Google whenever you can. It does not matter whether they or you think they are anti-evil or not, they are just to ubiquitous and too encompassing to be just a bystander. Evn they intend to, with this much information mining, it may not remain up to them at some point. National security etc. be damned. Good grief, I even thought about switching to that shiny new MS search thingy, if I just could stomach MS.

C'mon Apple, buy Yahoo, put a lipstick on that search pig, and allow us a bit of a privacy for a premium if necessary. Would be a great service and much appreciated.

Jul 16, 09 - 12:51 pm Comment from: Safari4IsGarbage

@LordRobin

For me Safari 4 is:

Slower
Less stable
Uglier
Less "useful" and informative (Snapback, blue loading bar, moved reload button etc).

Apple doesn't always get it right, but at least there's an uninstaller to go back to the previous version, right? Wrong. For some reason Apple won't allow you to remove this piece of crap without jumping through hoops first. How very Redmond of them.

Firefox is crap too, which is why, as I mentioned, I'm looking forward to trying out Chrome.

Jul 16, 09 - 12:58 pm Comment from: Buster

Safari is crap on some sites but I use Firefox to overcome those. Both browsers serve 100% of my needs...Safari speed and Firefox universality. Will chrome bring me something that these other two combined won't? I don't care much about looks....function over form is more important 99.9% of the time.

Jul 16, 09 - 01:10 pm Comment from: mac 87

Safari 4 is the fastest browser on the planet, both for Windows and Mac. If you don't believe me, see the Wall Street Journal review by Walt Mossberg.

Quit whining. Nothing's perfect for every situation, but Safari gets us through 99% of what we do. We've switched and completely left Mozilla behind.

I agree w/ krquet, about being very skeptical and wary of anything from Google. They are a potential wolf in sheep's clothing.

Plus they take forever to finish anything, and promise the moon and deliver an a rock.

Jul 16, 09 - 01:44 pm Comment from: Big Al

@ Safari4IsGarbage,

You must be using Safari 4 on Vista or 7.

Clue: Everything on Windows Vista/7 is slow.

Safari 4 is the world's fastest browser. Google it.

Jul 16, 09 - 02:03 pm Comment from: JAYGEE

I will download chrome when it is complete, and if it is decent, I have have it as my secondary browser, after safari, and if it is amazing, replace safari with it.

Jul 16, 09 - 02:12 pm Comment from: Michael M.

Safari 4 was crashing all the time for me until I upgraded to 4.0.2. Since then I have had no problems whatsoever.

Chrome? Who needs it. I'm perfectly happy with Safari on my Macs and Firefox on Windows.

Jul 16, 09 - 02:13 pm Comment from: freebeer

Safari 4 on Window is AWFULLY slow in rendering this site in particular and switching to new tabs, and even crashes, compare to Chrome on Windows (have to use PC at work). On a Mac, though, the WebKit builds I use is rock solid and faster than other browsers on my MBP (FF, OP, Camino, etc.). That said, Chrome is a curious install on Windows, and there are issues with it, but this is not a Chrome forum.

For a web developer, the reality is that they are the same. If a page does not work in WebKit, neither Chrome nor Safari will render it. Speed and look-and-feel is secondary.

It will be interesting to see how Safari and Chrome compare on a Mac, especially later, on Snow Leopard.

Jul 16, 09 - 04:29 pm Comment from: TxUser

The major thing missing for me is that I can find no way to import my existing bookmarks from Safari (or any of my other browsers that use the same list).

Reader feedback page 1 of 1 pages:

Always -- Free ground shipping with orders over $50 at the Apple Store.

Add Your Feedback:

Register or Login

Name:

Email: (optional)

Emoticons | Allowed HTML Tags

Remember my info   Notify me of follow-up comments?

Please enter the "MDN Magic Word" you see in the image below: