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.
