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Chrome Beta for Mac Nearly Ready for Launch, But Some Features Postponed

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Apr 12, 2001
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In a report posted yesterday, TechCrunch points to a Twitter posting from Mike Pinkerton of the Chrome for Mac team noting that there were only eight bugs remaining to be addressed before the Mac beta of Chrome is ready for its launch expected for some time in the next month.

"8 remaining M4 Mac beta blockers! Go team! #chrome"

This means that there are only 8 things standing in the way of Chrome for Mac going beta. "M4" stands for "milestone 4," which is how they phrase "version 4," which the Mac beta build of Chrome will be (the current dev channel version is 4.0.249.12, for example).
Click to expand...
Speculation on the eight bugs noted by Pinkerton centers on this list, which is already down to four outstanding issues.

In a follow-up article, TechCrunch looks at the features for Chrome that will not be included in the initial beta release and have been pushed out to the next beta version in order to allow Google to meet its goal of releasing the initial beta before the end of the year.

- Bookmark Manager
- App Mode (allows Chrome to run Web apps in their own simplified windows)
- Task Manager
- Gears (offline support for Web apps; apparently being scrapped entirely in favor of HTML5)
- Bookmark syncing
- Multi-touch gestures
- 64-bit support
- Full support for extensions
- Full screen mode (possibly)

Developer builds of Chrome for Mac have been available for several months, but the move to a beta version suggests that users can expect to see a fairly stable browser with a number of significant features included. Work will continue on Chrome with additional Developer Preview releases occurring on a regular basis. Refined versions will then periodically be released as new additions to Chrome's Beta channel. Releases will eventually make their way to Chrome's "Stable" channel, which will offer "rock solid" performance without the inclusion of features still under development and testing.

Article Link: Chrome Beta for Mac Nearly Ready for Launch, But Some Features Postponed
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/30/chrome-beta-for-mac-nearly-ready-for-launch-but-some-features-postponed/
Im finding some of the more recent developer builds very stable, and have not had any problems so far. Im looking forward to trying Chrome out.
 
I'm a FF user on Mac and Windows (when I have to).

I haven't switched to Safari because of the lack of plug-ns.

I will more than likely switch to Chrome once some of the plug-ins are out there such as WOT, Ad-Block, ReadItLater. These are the only real plug-ins I use in FF, well and Personas, but Chrome comes with some customisation I believe.

I have tried Chrome out and it flies in comparison to Safari and FF
 
I'm glad to hear that the beta will be finally available. I love app testing, especially browsers so I'll try out Chrome as soon as possible.
 
Seems like some pretty big features to miss out on!

I am a Safari man all the way! :)

I'll give it a go of course when it comes out though.

P.S. My new favorite plug-in for Safari is "Click to Flash" :D
 
Looking forward to this, use it at work on Windows and love the speed. Just need a stable Mac version and it's bye bye Safari!

AnDy
 
Aside from some minor issues the Dev build(s) of Chrome have been working fine.
Any extras the beta brings to the table is welcomed by me! :cool:
 
Sorry, but bookmark support is a pre-alpha feature for a browser and not having it in place for a beta is embarrassing. It's currently a Priority 2 for Version 5 despite long being the bug with the most "stars"/followers in their bug-tracker. The bug entry gives no indication that there's any active development on the issue.

Chrome is the best browser on Windows, but they're going to have to show more interest in the Mac side. Maybe we can hope for proper bookmarks in another year and a half? Or are plugins now more important than basic functionality?

/rant
 
I like Chrome because it seems faster than Safari. And seems to use less resources.

I swear Safari is always paging my hard drive. I think the Top Sites feature is responsible.

Chrome does another thing particularly well. It opens up links in the adjacent tab in instances where Safari either opens them up in a tab at the end of the row of tabs or opens them up in a new window.

I also like the tabs at the top design like Safari briefly had before. It saves on space.

I'm getting used to the address bar also being the Google search window. Still I miss the "search history" Safari has.

And Safari's browsing history is much better as well.

And Safari has a neat graphical drag and drop buttons to the toolbar interface. And has an option to email links and even page contents.

Safari is much more ahead in features in other words. Chrome is a bit behind. And this coming from someone that doesn't need alot of features.
 
I like Chrome a lot and I'm ready to use it as soon as they add the Bookmark manager...... guess I'll be waiting a while longer then.
 
No cigar

:eek: Until they remove that creepy "keystone" updater that weaves its way into my background processes, I won't use any Google software. It's too hard to control, too hard to remove.
 
What's so hard about programming the Mac?

The native language is Objective-C which is a proper subset of C, and it's the same CPU, so most of the core code should come right across from Windows. Not to mention that WebKit is already a Mac framework.

As for the GUI, that would all be different, but you have IB to help there. As for their fancy separate process for each tab thing, well the way posix/unix (and therefore Mac) processes work is old news -- there should be no problem finding experts in that. I just don't see what the sticking point is.
 
Don't see a reason to switch, almost forgot that google was working on this... Safari is my primary browser, love the new top sites option. I also use Firefox and at times use Opera if I need to do full screen presentations.

MacFly123 said:
P.S. My new favorite plug-in for Safari is "Click to Flash" :D
Click to expand...

Thanks for the plug-in suggestion!!! works great!
 
trip1ex said:
I swear Safari is always paging my hard drive. I think the Top Sites feature is responsible.
Click to expand...
I have top sites disabled.
trip1ex said:
Chrome does another thing particularly well. It opens up links in the adjacent tab in instances where Safari either opens them up in a tab at the end of the row of tabs or opens them up in a new window.
Click to expand...
Chrome has only one feature that I'd like to see in Safari: if you select text, right click, and select 'show in Google' it opens a new tab, as opposed to Safari's overwriting your current page with the search results.
 
MacRumors said:
... the features for Chrome that will not be included in the initial beta release and have been pushed out to the next beta version in order to allow Google to meet its goal of releasing the initial beta before the end of the year.

- Bookmark Manager
- App Mode (allows Chrome to run Web apps in their own simplified windows)
- Task Manager
- Gears (offline support for Web apps; apparently being scrapped entirely in favor of HTML5)
- Bookmark syncing
- Multi-touch gestures
- 64-bit support
- Full support for extensions
- Full screen mode (possibly)
Click to expand...
I'm hoping they leave in the web browser... :p
 
I love Chrome and am using the dev channel version for Mac right now. I love the features. Plus it's simple and blazing fast. I used to love Safari, but it's gotten bloated and buggy. It takes forever to open and when it does open it freezes trying to do its thing to both load the page and update its previews. Plus the RSS is fugged up. Most of the time it gives an error trying to load the feeds. Now I'm using Google Reader and a handy extension for Chrome. It's buggy but in a less annoying way than Safari.

Fuchal said:
I like Chrome a lot and I'm ready to use it as soon as they add the Bookmark manager...... guess I'll be waiting a while longer then.
Click to expand...

Yeah that part is annoying, but if you open the bookmark and click the yellow star, you can move or delete them. It's slower, but it's better than nothing. It's not a deal breaker for me -- it's still much better than Safari is at the moment.
 
MacFly123 said:
Seems like some pretty big features to miss out on!

I am a Safari man all the way! :)

I'll give it a go of course when it comes out though.

P.S. My new favorite plug-in for Safari is "Click to Flash" :D
Click to expand...

Same here. Try Glims too if you haven't already. I hate FF, love Safari on OS X and love Chrome on Windows when i had a PC.
 
Privacy question ...

Does anyone know the details of exactly what data is transmitted to Google by virtue of using their browser vs. other browsers? I recall the Windows version had some workaround to prevent user or usage data from being sent on, and wondering if the Mac version had a similar issue. Thanks.
 
Postponed features are vital

In my opinion Chromes becomes more usable than Safari when the following features are working:

- Bookmark Manager
- App Mode (allows Chrome to run Web apps in their own simplified windows)
- Task Manager
- Gears (offline support for Web apps; apparently being scrapped entirely in favor of HTML5)
- Bookmark syncing

Which happen to be all 5 of the features the are postponing.

I mean, really... why were skins more important again?
 
Totally agree ...

I totally agree ... Fernando Lamas must be smiling in his grave: "It's better to look good [skins] than to feel good [implement real usable features that users want]"

Lailoken said:
In my opinion Chromes becomes more usable than Safari when the following features are working:

- Bookmark Manager
- App Mode (allows Chrome to run Web apps in their own simplified windows)
- Task Manager
- Gears (offline support for Web apps; apparently being scrapped entirely in favor of HTML5)
- Bookmark syncing

Which happen to be all 5 of the features the are postponing.

I mean, really... why were skins more important again?
Click to expand...
 
Mac OS X Ocelot said:
I love Chrome and am using the dev channel version for Mac right now. I love the features. Plus it's simple and blazing fast. I used to love Safari, but it's gotten bloated and buggy. It takes forever to open and when it does open it freezes trying to do its thing to both load the page and update its previews. Plus the RSS is fugged up. Most of the time it gives an error trying to load the feeds. Now I'm using Google Reader and a handy extension for Chrome. It's buggy but in a less annoying way than Safari.
Click to expand...

Gotta be your system b/c Safari 4 runs like a friggin' champ on mine. Everything I could ask for in a browser with Glims installed. Chrome, Schmome.
 
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