RSSGoogle's Chrome browser heads toward Linux and Mac
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published September 9, 2008, 7:05 PM
While the current beta edition of Chrome currently runs on Windows only, open source developers -- including some from Mozilla -- are now working on getting Google's new browser to operate on Linux and Mac, too.
The developers' site for Chromium, an open source project rolled out by Google at the time of its launch of the Chrome browser, also contains build instructions for Windows, Linux, and Mac. There, in addition to making the source code for Chrome available under a BSD license, Google explains how to submit patches and submit bug reports. The source code for Chrome's high-performance V8 JavaScript engine is also downloadable.
Apparently, some of the developers from the Mozilla Foundation -- an organization which still receives Google funding -- are also working on the Chromium Project.
In a blog post on his own Web site last week, developer Mike Pinkerton said that he plans to continue his decade-long involvement with Mozilla as the project lead for Camino -- the foundation's browser project for Mac -- even though he's contributing to Chromium, too. Pinkerton's Camino 2.0 is a new release of the Mozilla_1_9 branch (Gecko 1.9) requiring Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
"There shouldn't be any talk of 'doom' or 'gloom' because really nothing has changed. People still download Camino and continue to send e-mail to our feedback list saying how much they love the product this community has created. That's just as valid tomorrow as it was yesterday," according to Pinkerton. "[But] I'm also looking forward to working with and becoming a part of the WebKit community. [It's] interesting [to see] how many people in the Mozilla community also participate in Webkit," he said. Webkit is a rendering engine used in both Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari browser.
"My goal (again, speaking for myself) is to build a first-rate, native Mac product for Chromium and make it so that other projects can stand on the shoulders of giants," Pinkerton continued. "That's what open source is all about. I don't know why I should be shy about saying that, and I don't feel bad about it one bit."
Interestingly, although Google's Android project -- now in simultaneous development with Chrome -- constitutes a Linux-based mobile platform, a Linux edition of the Chrome desktop browser seems to still be in its early stages at Chromium.
Meanwhile, for users who can't wait for a native Linux browser for Chromium to reach the same stage as the Windows edition, a developer named Romeo Adrian Cloabaon has posted instructions on his Web site for how to install Google Chrome for Windows on Linux using the Wine framework.
Chrome is extremely fast and simpel as it can get in terms of design. Great. But that is comes from Google makes us feel a bit uncomfortable. Webkit browsers as Konqueror, Safari and Chrome are promising and they will be all cross-platform.
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|How about getting it to work on Windows first?
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|lol, why bother at all?
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|*posting from Chrome*
It doesn't?
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|At least you won't have to worry about Apple.
Let's see if they don't again, as has become the rule, claim to have a superior system and then obfuscate their system processes or sue in order to prevent competition on their platform.
But their products are superior you see, and that is why they lack sufficient faith and are afraid to compete in the open market.
(Edit for clarification ..."they" refers to Apple...}
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|Apple rant in a Google Chrome thread...
You're starting to get a little trollish, foxy. ;)
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|Just anticipating internetworld7's appearance...after all, this is an announcement about Chrome on the Mac... ;-)
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|Personally, I'd rather they get the kinks worked out of the code prior to working on porting it.
Flash crashing and setting off a banner on *every* *single* *tab* is *really* annoying. The pop-up alone was plenty. I didn't need to have to hit the "X" on all 19 tabs across three windows for the point to hit home, folks.
I damn near un-installed it right there. That kinda pissed me off.
...kinda.
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|Why would Apple care if you use Safari or not? It's not like they make any money off of it, all they care about is selling you that Mac. Have you forgotten the days when Apple supported Internet Explorer?
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|Google Chrome also relies on Windows' proxy setup which a friend of mine pointed out ...
Chrome is only v0.2, so it makes sense that they've released a preview to the widest user base to establish their browser... I think it's awesome that so many people are thrilled about porting it!
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|Currently all that Chromium compiles for Mac and Linux are command line tests. No GUI or otherwise usable app yet.
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|Thanks for the heads-up warning.
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|Well, that's good since the rendering engine/framework WebKit has been running on Mac OS X for quite a while and was derived from KHTML, which started on Linux and BSD quite a while earlier.
Google always seems to be concerned about Windows, though I suppose they should instead be concerned about their own bugs.
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