Google Rolls Out Chrome for the Mac… Sort Of

June 5th, 2009 at 11:09 AM - Product News by Jeff Gamet

Coders and intrepid souls that scoff at application crashes and bugs can get a taste of Google's Chrome Web browser on the Mac now that the Internet search giant has released a developer-focused version of the app for Mac OS X. The developer release brings Google a step closer to its promise of Chrome for the Mac, but is missing several features such as Flash support and printing.

Mike Smith and Karen Grunberg, Google's Chrome product managers, advised against downloading Chrome for the Mac "unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."

Other problems in this early pre-beta release include memory leaks, no way to use bookmarks, no YouTube video support, no way to change privacy settings, and more. Despite the current limitations, Google is making progress in expanding its Chrome Web browser beyond its Microsoft Windows boundaries.

Google, however, isn't the only place to look for Chrome for the Mac. TechSutra has been compiling its own builds of the Web browser and releasing them to the public, and their most recent build looks to be more up to date than Google's official download -- Google's Chrome for the Mac is at version 3.0.182.5, while TechSutra's build is 3.0.184.

TechSutra's efforts show there is a real interest for Chrome on Mac OS X, and both their and Google's builds show the browser has the potential to be a strong player on the Mac.

Google Chrome is free and requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 or higher.