Google will release a beta of its Chrome browser for the Mac in a matter of weeks, a company manager said yesterday.
According to Neil Baum, a product manager on the Chrome team, Google will take the Mac version of its browser to beta in early December. A Google spokesman declined to confirm an exact date for the Mac beta, but noted that a release early next month "shouldn't sound too surprising," since the company had previously promised a public preview before the end of the year.
[ Follow the cloud with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing blog and Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ]
Baum mentioned the early December time frame in a message posted Wednesday to the Chromium-extensions forum, where he urged developers to work on BrowserActions, a Chrome feature that lets users call an extension by clicking on an icon at the right of the browser's address bar.
"The extensions team has been working hard to get BrowserActions ready, and they're already working great on Windows and Linux," Baum said. "We've noticed that many of you have updated your extensions to take advantage of the new UI. We'd like to encourage the rest of you to do so as well.
"Why make the switch now?" he continued. "The earlier you switch, the more time you will have to polish your experience for our Beta launch in early December. We realize this means dropping Mac support for a couple of weeks, but we already have people working on that."
Google shifted Chrome for Windows out of beta two months ago, but has not yet produced a beta for either Mac or Linux. Self-styled "developer channel" editions of Chrome on Mac and Linux were released last June, but Google has repeatedly warned off casual users from those early, potentially-unstable versions.
Chrome currently accounts for an estimated 3.6 percent share of all browsers, according to the most recent numbers from Web metrics company Net Applications. The addition of a Mac version would bump up Chrome's share, according to analysts and experts, including Gartner's Ray Valdes and Net Applications' Vince Vizzaccaro.
"I always thought that [Mozilla's] Firefox would be in a great position if it made 10 percent," Vizzaccaro said today, referring to the other open-source browser on the market. Firefox currently has a 25 percent share of the browser market. "Now I'm thinking the same thing about Chrome."
If Chrome sustains its average growth rate of the last three months, it will reach the 5 percent mark in March 2010, six months ahead of Google's schedule of September 2010. Google has set a 10 percent share goal for 2011, something Gartner's Valdes said is doable. "It's an achievable goal if they hit on all cylinders," Valdes said in an earlier interview. "Google has a massive footprint on the Internet landscape."
The developer version of Chrome for the Mac can be downloaded from Google's site.
Get the independent advice and expertise you need to support a virtual workforce.
The increase in Linux popularity has increased the frequency and sophistication of malware attacks. Read this 2 page white paper now to learn how you can protect your Linux environment with real-time protection that is certified by all major Linux vendors.
Download now »
Ensuring acceptable application delivery will become even more difficult over the next few years. As a result, IT organizations need to ensure that the approach that they take to resolving the current application delivery challenges can scale to support the emerging challenges. This handbook elaborates on the key tasks associated with planning, optimization, management and control and provides decision criteria to help IT organizations choose appropriate solutions.
Download now »
A common misconception is that mid-range storage requirements are dramatically different than that of a larger enterprise. Mid-range storage users may require less capacity, but they have similar functionality and management requirements. This ESG paper examines mid-range storage needs and reviews a new solution that adjusts size while retaining value, performance and functionality.
Download now »
Sign up to receive InfoWorld Resource Alerts
Like any valuable resource, IT is a terrible thing to waste. But by applying the same lean techniques that have been used to streamline manufacturing processes, IT departments can reduce costs, improve performance and better manage resources.
Download now! »
Stephen Elliot, vice president of strategy for CA's Infrastructure Management and Data Center Automation business unit, explains why difficult economic times drive the need for simplified management capabilities and advanced automation tools.
Listen now! »
According to a recent study CA conducted with 300 CIOs and top IT executives, 64 percent of respondents say they've already invested in virtualization, and the other 36 percent reported that they plan to invest in virtualization.
Download now! »
In this video learn about process automation in a virtualized world. How CA and VMware are enabling enterprise datacenter automation.
View now! »
15 Recommendations
