Google Releases Chrome for Mac Beta

[jon08]

Can someone run this test on their Chrome Mac and post the results here? I'm interested how it will compare...

http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper/index.action

 

[ravenvii]

Just tried it, it's not bad. This made me wish Apple hadn't moved the tabs from the titlebar to under the addressbar. I hope Safari 5 will move it back to the top! So much wasted space in Safari 4.

 

[jmre5150]

Ive been using it all day. Its super fast for me. I love it.

 

[Andronicus]

how about if you gonna stop posting "I will download" and "downloading now", and post some thoughts on how it actually work and what you think about it, huh?

I will download it....

....downloading now.

 

[borcanm]

Wow. Its so much better than Safari or FireFox. It seems faster, cleaner and less of a ram hog.

 

[Drag'nGT]

Overall it's not my cup of tea. I'm happy we have another browser but I'll stick to Safari.

 

[DoNoHarm]

wow, not having a separate search box blows so bad.... and it doesen't look better than Safari. however, the tabs behavior is better. Like if you open a new tab from a tab in the middle of all your tabs, the new tab comes up in the middle too, not at the end of the tabs.

 

[shawnce]

Sure, now the issue is not that it is "ugly", it's that it's "slower on JavaScript". ... I have no issues with JavaScript at all, but then again I'm not looking to create one.

No it is still ugly compared to other Mac browsers but they are making improvements to UI... in my experience however Opera is still slower, on average, then Safari for the sites I use. Opera is excellent in memory usage of course but that is not an issue on my system.

Anyway I decided to test the JavaScript performance of the browsers I currently have on my system. If I have the time I may run some rendering benchmarks (ran across a few, and in general Safari and Chrome are ahead of Opera but hard to gather data from these tests quickly...).

  Model Name:	Mac Pro
  Model Identifier:	MacPro3,1
  Processor Name:	Quad-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed:	2.8 GHz
  Number Of Processors:	2
  Total Number Of Cores:	8
  L2 Cache (per processor):	12 MB
  Memory:	8 GB
  Bus Speed:	1.6 GHz
  Boot ROM Version:	MP31.006C.B05
  SMC Version (system):	1.25f4
  System Version:	Mac OS X 10.6.1 (10B504) (yeah I still need to update)
  Kernel Version:	Darwin 10.0.0

The first number is the average of three V8 benchmark runs after ignoring two warmup runs. Higher number for V8 is better. The second number is sunspider benchmark. Lower number for sunspider is better.

• Opera 10.10 (6795)
  195 | 3897.2ms +/- 0.4% (details)
  
• FireFox 3.0.13
  228 | 2550.4ms +/- 0.3% (details)
  
• Safari 4.0.3 (6531.9)
  2705 | 360.6ms +/- 0.3% (details)
  
• WebKit 4.0.3 (6531.9, r51825)
  3092 | 314.4ms +/- 1.4% (details)
  
• Google Chrome 4.0.249.30
  4241 | 422.8ms +/- 2.4% (details)

Note on my system Safari and WebKit nightly run 64-bit while the other browsers are 32-bit.

 

[ChazUK]

wow, not having a separate search box blows so bad....

Did you know the address box is also the search box?

 

[haravikk]

I hope there's an AdBlock or similar extension too. Don't realise how much crap there is until you don't have one...

I've been using Glimmer Blocker for a while now, and it's good, no plug-in needed and works with all browsers on your machine, including HTML e-mails etc.

 

[wallaby]

Chrome is fast, which is all I ever really wanted from it. Unfortunately I can't really think of a reason to switch from Safari, as it's not THAT much faster. I still use Firefox as my "work" browser on account of all the plugins I use, but Safari works fine for quick "open, browse, and close" windows since it opens so fast.

Dunno, Chrome may edge in, but they're two browsers that do basically the same thing for me.

 

[bigandtasty]

Someone's on the rags.

That's what she said!

 

[cgmpowers]

Serious Font Issues...

I have something seriously wrong with the fonts. At first I thought it was some font I had in Suitecase Fusion but its not even ON. I tried turning Suitecase on and looking for fonts but even that wasn't helping.

I googled help on this issue and found steps to fix it, yet the directions aren't helping because the change font section is grayed out...so I can't even fix it inside Google...

Any advice??

Chris Powers
cpowersATmac.com

 

[ChazUK]

Not that it helps cgmpowers but my font settings are greyed out too so that appears to be normal.

EDIT: Do you think a quick permissions repair and reboot may help?

 

[jmull]

But it's fast.

I cant believe people choose to stick with Safari when Chrome is this stable.

* Safari doesnt open clicked links in new tab but in a new Window!
* Safari doesnt allow search-queries in the adressbar like FF and Chrome
* Safari doesnt have the common key-shortcuts like FF/Chrome. Example: Cmd+2 to switch to tab nr2
* Safari has no extensions (ok some plugins) like Firefox and Chrome(will do)

But it's fast.

 

[300D]

No PPC code = FAIL

 

[JAT]

Awesome! Finally, there's a program that allows you to surf the internet. How did I ever get along without it?

 

[HyperZboy]

What.!!!! No PPC version.

My thoughts exactly. This will, at least in the short term future, doom this browser to significantly less usage & market share than Safari or Firefox, if not doom it to 3rd-4th place permanently, at least on Macs.

Sure, I'll check it out on my Intel Mac, but for those who have a variety or multiple Macs, most of those people won't want to get attached to something they can't use on all their Macs. How much extra cost would there have been for a Universal Binary version? Seems like a bad decision to me. If it was a huge complicated program like Adobe's Creative Suite, I could understand, but a browser too expensive/difficult to make a UB version?

Sounds like a halfhearted Mac Google effort all around to me from the long delay to release it, then it doesn't even work on 15-25% on Macs in current use.

 

[*LTD*]

My thoughts exactly. This will, at least in the short term future, doom this browser to significantly less usage & market share than Safari or Firefox, if not doom it to 3rd-4th place permanently, at least on Macs.

Sure, I'll check it out on my Intel Mac, but for those who have a variety or multiple Macs, most of those people won't want to get attached to something they can't use on all their Macs. How much extra cost would there have been for a Universal Binary version? Seems like a bad decision to me. If it was a huge complicated program like Adobe's Creative Suite, I could understand, but a browser too expensive/difficult to make a UB version?

Sounds like a halfhearted Mac Google effort all around to me from the long delay to release it, then it doesn't even work on 15-25% on Macs in current use.

PPC is dead. Google is perfectly fine with that. Sacrificing some short-term marketshare in order to avoid coding for a dead Apple platform? No problem. it certainly won't break Google. Chrome is for Windows as well. If Chrome is good, it'll pick up. Quarter after quarter Intel-based Macs (or just "Macs") are flying off the shelves in record numbers.

POWERPC IS DEAD. And it's not comng back. Apple no longer cares about PPC. Why should Google? Quit spamming every thread with your PowerPC-bellyaching. Please!

 

[I WAS the one]

i love it. maybe Safari will go to the not-using-anymore box..

 

[solaris]

Ouch! No extensions, bookmark manager or cookie manager.
Which all seem to be present in the GNU/Linux version also released today. So as "always" we Mac users seems to get the short end of the stick...

** Uninstalls **

 

[HyperZboy]

No OS 9 version. No chrome for me.

The problem with that bad joke is almost no one is using OS 9 anymore and no Mac in years supports it.

LOTS of people are still using PPC Macs & Apple's Safari & Mozilla's Firefox both support it.

Big difference. So at least in the short term, this browser will not be used by many people, even many who have both an Intel & a PPC Mac because who wants to get used to a user experience that they can't use on both their Macs?

 

[*LTD*]

The problem with that bad joke is almost no one is using OS 9 anymore and no Mac in years supports it.

LOTS of people are still using PPC Macs & Apple's Safari & Mozilla's Firefox both support it.

Big difference. So at least in the short term, this browser will not be used by many people, even many who have both an Intel & a PPC Mac because who wants to used to a user experience that they can't use on both their Macs?

What? Those who have PowerPC Macs already have a browser and software for it. They didn't magically stop working. Google simply doesn't care to support a dead platform, same as Apple.

Chrome IS being used by "many" people. Chrome is not exclusive to OS X. Google didn't need to even be in any rush to code for OS X, we're not that big of a market anyway. So why then should they code for a dead platform that represents far less than OS X's already limited market share??

If you're not happy with your PPC equipment anymore then ebay them, they'll likely fetch a decent price, and use the proceeds to invest in new Macs. Otherwise, enjoy them for all they can still do (which is nearly everything) and understand that with each passing month your PPC whining becomes less relevant.

LOL.

PPC IS DEAD.

 

[eastcoastsurfer]

My thoughts exactly. This will, at least in the short term future, doom this browser to significantly less usage & market share than Safari or Firefox, if not doom it to 3rd-4th place permanently, at least on Macs.

Sure, I'll check it out on my Intel Mac, but for those who have a variety or multiple Macs, most of those people won't want to get attached to something they can't use on all their Macs. How much extra cost would there have been for a Universal Binary version? Seems like a bad decision to me. If it was a huge complicated program like Adobe's Creative Suite, I could understand, but a browser too expensive/difficult to make a UB version?

Sounds like a halfhearted Mac Google effort all around to me from the long delay to release it, then it doesn't even work on 15-25% on Macs in current use.

Huh? So, OSX and snow leopard are also doomed? Like LTD said, PPC is dead. Apple, not Google, declared that YEARS ago at this point.

 

[blackhand1001]

I understand it's a Beta, but currently, Safari owns Chrome when it comes to scrolling around on a YouTube page with HD content.

Well thats because there no hardware acceleration on mac that is supported for thrid party apps. I am not sure if safari uses quartz GL, but all apps on windows 7 take advantage of GDI acceleration. Chrome on windows does a fine job with youtube hd and scrolling.