You can always tell how good an idea is by how quickly someone else copies it. Google Chrome’s multi-process per tab or window idea must be a good one.

Despite Google being embarrassed about not having an OS X version of Chrome ready at launch they have been working diligently to get one up and running. But, they aren’t fast enough. Stainless, a new web-kit based browser for OS X has released their initial build. And the number one feature that Stainless has is its ability to mimic in many ways Google Chrome’s multi-process capabilities.

But while Stainless will offer Google Chrome some competition in the OS X environment, it isn’t anywhere near ready for the main stream. The initial release basically just features the ability to have a process per tab and to browse the web while doing so.

Features like bookmarks, view source, history, and many others are still not available in Stainless. In fact, the initial release is just showing that multi-process browsing can be accomplished.

Stainless admits on their home page that their approach to multi-process browsing is far less ambitious and easier to do than what Google is trying to do with Chrome but is using the browser to show of their own productHypercube, a tool that lets you really control the widgets on the web and desktop.

Will Stainless continue to develop or have they done what they set out to do… Prove that multi-process browsing on OS X is easy enough?

Discuss Stainless, Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox in the Maciverse Forums.

After Google announced that they were entering the Browser Wars we discussed the lack of capability to run their new Chrome Browser in OS X despite the fact that Chrome was build on Webkit, the same engine used in Apple’s Safari.

A few days later we found that Google was allowing individuals the capability to try and compile the latest Mac and Linux builds of Chrome. Unfortunately it was a more difficult process and few people were successful in actually getting the build to launch.

Now, Codeweavers is giving all Mac users the ability to play with Google’s new Chrome browser through their Wine technologies. Crossover Chromium takes the Google Chrome browser for windows and combines it with wine libraries to give Mac users the ability to launch and browse the web with Google Chrome.

The most interesting aspect of this is that Crossover does not need to be previously installed on oyur Mac to run the browser. Download Crossover Chromium from the Codeweavers website and launch the installer. It will take some time on the initial setup configuring the wine libraries for Google Chrome but will launch the browser to give Mac users the Google Chrome experience.

Although it won’t display as Google’s Chrome in the menu bar, the Crossover Chromium will look, act, and perform in OS X almost identically the way that the browser does on windows systems.

While the visual effects mimic that of Windows, we expect the official Google Chrome release to look more like Safari.

Yesterday we reported on the release of Google Chrome, the Webkit based web browser from Google, and how it was currently only available for Windows users.

Although the Google Mac development team clearly stated on their blog that the Mac version of Google Chrome was not ready, they failed to mention that you can attempt to build your own, webkit based, version of Google Chrome on Intel based Macs.

Instructions for building Google Chrome on the Mac include command line instructions for how to get, configure, and load the latest Google Chrome for Mac build. We’ve had difficulties ourself building Chrome from the instructions provided but those also seem to have to do with the Google Chrome for Mac SVN servers being heavily in use today.

So, if you’re comfortable with the command line, feel free to try and download, configure, and launch Google Chrome on your Mac OS X. Let us know if you’re successful and your initial experience.

Again, this version is not an official release from Google but used to assist developers and testers working with Chromium, the open source code behind Google Chrome.

Google announced today that they were throwing themselves into the web browser wars in more ways then just providing strong financial opportunities for the open source Firefox web browser. Google Chrome, the newest web browser on the block, is Google’s own version of what they believe a web browser should be.

Anything coming from Google is of interest to most web users and this is a major announcement for the Search Giant. But of most interest to Mac users is the lack of an option. You see, despite Google basing their browser on Webkit, the open source web engine that Safari is based on, Google Chrome is currently only available for Windows XP and Vista.

Google’s Mac team explained that they are busy at work to bring Google Chrome to Mac users.

In order to make sure Chromium feels right, each platform’s version is being built by people who live and breathe that platform; the engineers working on these versions are long-time Mac and Linux engineers who are just as picky about the details as anyone. It’s also not just the engineers; Macs and Linux machines are very popular at Google at all levels, so progress is already being followed avidly across all levels of the company.

But at the same time they can’t give Mac users a hard date for when the browser will be available on Mac OS X.

Right now, both are in the “pieces build and pass tests, but there’s no Chromium application yet.” While we’re working hard and fast on catching up to the Windows version, we’re not setting an artificial date for when they’ll be ready–we simply can’t predict enough to make a solid estimate

Initial trials of Google Chrome on Windows has been impressive. The browser is extremely fast with rendering pages and loading javascript. Hopefully this type of performance will be extended to the OS X version.

If you can’t wait for the OS X version and have Parallels, VMware, or VirtualBox with Windows installed, download Google Chrome and take it for a spin.

We last touched upon Inquisitor, a Safari plugin that brings Spotlight like search to Safari, when they joined the Yahoo team. Since then, Yahoo has had some interesting times, but it doesn’t look like it stopped the Inquisitor team from slowing down on their development work.

Recently, Inquisitor announced their first major upgrade since joining Yahoo. As one would expect version 3.2 includes improved search experience for those individuals that have selected Yahoo as their Inquisitor search engine. These upgrades include increased performance (Faster results) and use of Yahoo’s new Search Boss platform.

In addition to the new Yahoo capabilities, Inquisitor 3.2 adds visual improvements. Now your search results will a record count of how many times you’ve visited the site you’re searching for as well as the last time you visited.

Finally, one of the most significant announcement of Inquisitor includes support for eight additional languages (Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German).

If you haven’t yet upgraded Safari with Inquisitor search, now may be the perfect time.