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Chrome On the Way For Mac and Linux

Posted by timothy on from the oozing-brightly-into-all-corners dept.

TornCityVenz writes "I've seen many complaints in the feedback on Slashdot every time an article on Google's Chrome browser hits; the calls for true cross platform availability have struck me as a valid complaint. So now it seems Google is answering your calls, promising in this article on CNET a deadline for Mac and Linux support." I'd really like to not care about the name of the browser I'm using, but the mental cost of switching could be high for someone used to particular Firefox extensions, unless or until they can all be expected to work seamlessly with Chrome.

47 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. A firm date from Google? by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is this a sign of the apocalypse?

    1. Re:A firm date from Google? by Savione · · Score: 5, Informative

      Google "hopes to release versions for Mac OS X and Linux by the first half of the year". That's the closest thing TFA gives to a date, and Google hardly promises anything. The summary is somewhat misleading.

      --
      See it there, a white plume over the battle - A diamond in the ash of the ultimate combustion - My panache. --Cyrano
    2. Re:A firm date from Google? by j-pimp · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, let's not forget that Google rarely seems to advance a software "release" to anything beyond "Beta."

      They did for Chrome, which is the particular piece of software we are talking about here.

      Also, they are really pushing this browser, to end users. I don't think their plan is browser dominance. I think their plan is to prevent any browser from becoming too dominant.

      --
      --- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
    3. Re:A firm date from Google? by Firehed · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think it's more a matter of engineering resources. When you're a web-centric company, you'll do anything in your power to bring about the death of IE6.

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
    4. Re:A firm date from Google? by __aailrp9629 · · Score: 3, Funny

      The summary is somewhat misleading.

      You must be new here.

    5. Re:A firm date from Google? by Daengbo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just because you use the "beta" version of their software doesn't mean that there's not a release available -- it just doesn't have the same features. Google does have paid for services in addition to the free ones, or didn't you know that?

      --
      Put identity in the browser.
  2. What's the rush? by HangingChad · · Score: 4, Interesting

    but the mental cost of switching could be high for someone used to particular Firefox extensions, unless or until they can all be expected to work seamlessly with Chrome.

    What's the big rush? I tried Linux several times before I finally dual booted, then went on later to make the switch. If Chrome offers some features you find compelling, there's no reason they can't share browsing duty.

    A little competition is a good thing. Though I do have to say that opening up their platform for custom user extensions was a brilliant move by Mozilla.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
    1. Re:What's the rush? by icebraining · · Score: 5, Informative

      Except that StarOffice is a paid version of OpenOffice, while Chrome doesn't use many (if any) code from Firefox, not even the rendering engine. Besides, Mozilla isn't "owned" by Google, they receive funds in exchange of providing Google as the default search engine.

      --
      Dilbert RSS feed
    2. Re:What's the rush? by jbolden · · Score: 5, Informative

      Google is a customer / partner of Mozilla. Mozilla offers a service (default search engine) and Google pays a fee for that service.

    3. Re:What's the rush? by andy_t_roo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ah, but my 15 extensions worth of bloat is quite different to yours (except for noscript and addblock, probably). Since we both just get the features we want, is it rely bloat, which tends to be defined as extraneous and vaguely useful features that have been hanging around for a while.

  3. Why is it taking so long? by ClaraBow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I just don't understand why it is taking Google so long to release a Mac and Linux version. Can someone explain some of the technical issues that would cause such a delay? I"m just curious.

    1. Re:Why is it taking so long? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      They wrote a Windows wrapper around cross platform libraries. Then they had the nerve to deny it, even when anybody who looked at the source code immediately after initial release could see the truth of the matter.

    2. Re:Why is it taking so long? by ultrabot · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I just don't understand why it is taking Google so long to release a Mac and Linux version. Can someone explain some of the technical issues that would cause such a delay? I"m just curious.

      Chrome codebase is not "cross platform", in that you can't just go ahead and compile it for Linux. They are still implementing a Gtk ui - see

      http://dev.chromium.org/developers/faq

      --
      Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
    3. Re:Why is it taking so long? by itsdapead · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I just don't understand why it is taking Google so long to release a Mac and Linux version.

      Well, according to this they used Windows' own HTTP protocol implementation for the first version - they've now written their own.

      I suspect that Google are less concerned about taking marketshare from Safari (Mac) and Firefox (linux) than they are about getting established on Windows. Methinks their priority is to ensure that there is a Google-branded alternative to IE they can use as a web app platform just in case Microsoft does something to break Google Docs on IE (inadvertantly of course - no company with Microsoft's reputation would stoop to telling their developers that "IE9 ain't done until Gmail won't run"...)

      --
      In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
    4. Re:Why is it taking so long? by IceFox · · Score: 5, Interesting

      At least for Linux I wrote up a bunch it two months ago here: http://benjamin-meyer.blogspot.com/2008/11/status-of-chromium-on-linux.html Summary: It didn't even compile on anything but a very specific windows compiler when it was launched in September. Chrome was done by a Visual Studio team entirely on Windows. Now they are discovering all the fun of not planing ahead for cross platform.

      --
      Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
    5. Re:Why is it taking so long? by blind+biker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think Google is a better strategist than you are giving them credit to. Google doesn't give a shit whether there is Chrome on Mac or Linux, because those platforms are covered by Firefox and other non-Explorer browsers, and Google is fine with that. Google even sponsors Firefox, by the tune of millions of dollars.

      Google has one goal in mind: increase the non-IE marketshare. IE only exists on Windows, hence Chrome only needs to be able to fight on that platform.

      Now, if you don't even understand why Google needs to increase the non-IE marketshare, I can't help you.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    6. Re:Why is it taking so long? by Aladrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because Google projects are usually side-projects that the developers work on with part of their time as a 'fun' project.

      The developer that chose to do this was probably just having fun and didn't really expect it to be picked as one of the ideas that gets launched to users. So he did it however he wanted.

      Now that it's a big project, it's being fixed.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    7. Re:Why is it taking so long? by FST777 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because they want Chrome to be fast. While python is fast for a scripting language, it is not up to the task of delivering the fastest browser known to man.

      If I were Google (that is a great sentence) I would base it on QT 4. Fast, customizable, cross-platform, modern and integrated with WebKit.

      --
      Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
    8. Re:Why is it taking so long? by cryptoluddite · · Score: 5, Informative

      Chrome codebase is not "cross platform", in that you can't just go ahead and compile it for Linux. They are still implementing a Gtk ui - see

      Or, to put it another way, Google's entire contribution to the Chrome browser was a non-crossplatform, non-portable UI. V8 and WebKit were done by others and are cross-platform. Google knows their browser is just polish on other people's success with WebKit and V8 which is why they stole the name "chrome" from Mozilla.

      There's basically one thing that makes Chrome special and that's running tabs in a separate process (for plugins, nspluginwrapper already does this).

      Google gets a lot more credit for Chrome than they deserve. If it wasn't done by Google it would be hardly even notable.

    9. Re:Why is it taking so long? by Sancho · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Every single person I know that uses Chrome switched away from Firefox.

      I know that's only a few data points in the pool, but you can't deny that people who don't "get" alternate browsers will probably never change away from IE.

    10. Re:Why is it taking so long? by kripkenstein · · Score: 4, Informative

      If I were Google (that is a great sentence) I would base it on QT 4. Fast, customizable, cross-platform, modern and integrated with WebKit.

      Qt is nice, but its licensing prevents Google from using it in this way. To use Qt, Google would need to either pay for a license, but it wouldn't be transferable to others, or Chrome would need to be GPLed. Google goes to great effort to license it's code under the Apache/BSD/etc. licenses whenever possible, as it considers this better for it's business (and that's a reasonable position to take).

      Until Nokia relicenses Qt to something like the LGPL - many of us would welcome that! - GTK will remain the library of choice in situations like this.

    11. Re:Why is it taking so long? by Serious+Callers+Only · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Until their machine comes with Chrome bundled as the default browser - that's the end game Google are aiming for here.

      Then you'll see IE user-share decline rapidly.

    12. Re:Why is it taking so long? by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 5, Funny

      True. But it's horrid across many platforms!

      --
      Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
    13. Re:Why is it taking so long? by philgross · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Nope. Win32 is emphatically not Unix. If anything, it's closer to the old DEC VAX VMS OS (Dave Cutler's earlier OS). While there are POSIX compatibility adapters, the native OS provides services that look pretty different from the classic UNIX ones (process creation, IPC, security, etc.).

      I recommend Windows System Programming by Hart if you want to get a feeling for it. It's arguably a better (and certainly more modern) API than the classic UNIX set. I mean, fork() is a pretty weird way to create a new process, if you think about it.

      This is _not_ an endorsement of the entire Windows OS, which has miles-deep layers of cruft and crap on top -- just talking about the kernel and core system services.

    14. Re:Why is it taking so long? by Klivian · · Score: 4, Informative

      Qt is nice, but its licensing prevents Google from using it in this way. To use Qt, Google would need to either pay for a license,

      This would be no problem. Fact is, Google already does exactly this for other products.

      but it wouldn't be transferable to others,

      ??? What are you talking about? Companies sell, eg transfer, software developed with Qt all the time, it's what is made for after all. Obviously the license allow it.

      or Chrome would need to be GPLed. Google goes to great effort to license it's code under the Apache/BSD/etc. licenses whenever possible, as it considers this better for it's business (and that's a reasonable position to take).

      No need for GPL, you can freely use Qt with a wide range of open source licenses like Apache/BSD/etc. Please check your facts. http://doc.trolltech.com/4.4/license-gpl-exceptions.html

    15. Re:Why is it taking so long? by aschran · · Score: 4, Informative

      Uh, V8 was not "done by others." That was all Google.

    16. Re:Why is it taking so long? by Barraketh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, I don't think this was a 20% project. Chrome had a team of engineers working on it, and at its core it has the V8 Javascript engine. You don't just wake up one day and say "Hey, why don't I write an optimized Javascript engine from scratch!" This is a project that fits in with Google's strategic vision, and it had the necessary manpower allocated to it.

    17. Re:Why is it taking so long? by idlemachine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They wrote a Windows wrapper around cross platform libraries.

      No, you've inverted it, they wrote a "cross platform layer" that currently only has a Windows libraries based implementation:

      Chrome uses abstraction libraries to draw the GUI on other non-Windows platforms, but for now, what sits underneath part of ChromeViews is good ol' WTL.

      (from Scott Hanselman's analysis of the Chrome code)

      This indicates that Google did have multiplatform support in mind from the beginning. If they hadn't used native Windows libs for the GUI, I'm pretty certain we'd be hearing just as much bitching about how cross platform libs never perform as solidly as native ones.

      Then they had the nerve to deny it, even when anybody who looked at the source code immediately after initial release could see the truth of the matter.

      Citation, please.

  4. Firefox extension? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but the mental cost of switching could be high for someone used to particular Firefox extensions, unless or until they can all be expected to work seamlessly with Chrome.

    Unless I am grossly misinformed, I do not see how Firefox extensions could work at all on Chrome, let alone 'seamlessly'. A statement such as this essentially says "I will only use exactly what I have now"

    1. Re:Firefox extension? by alexborges · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I read it differently.

      I thought it pictures quite well the fact that Chrome will have a huge way to go against firefox if they cannot take some of firefoxes most popular extensions features and offer them in chrome.

      I wanna be able to firebug, addblock and a host of other stuff that, if not available in chrome while most of google works fine with ff, then its useless to me.

      The real trouble will be spelled out next year, when google decides that this or that feature of their cloud will be chrome only.

      We will be damning google for ages after that. But mark my words:

      I foresaw it in my noodles.

      --
      NO SIG
  5. FireFox extensions by Tink2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sorry, Timothy: it's doubtful you'll see out of the box compatibility with AdBlock for Chrome.
    Why would a technology company that generates revenue from ads want to allow you to block the ads?
    Slashdot's pretty greedy these days; there's ads in my RSS feed from Slashdot.
    I ignore them.

    --
    Why do I M2 everything negatively?
    1. Re:FireFox extensions by owlnation · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Google would lose nothing from allowing adblock. In fact, they would only gain from it.

      The only reason to block ads for most people is because they are distracting. This means flash, animated gifs, and rotating scripts. If ads didn't move, there would be a much reduced need to block them. Personally I just can't read a page if something is blinking in the corner. Prior to adblock, I'd have to put pieces of paper over parts of the screen, or scroll it to hide ads. Advertisers have always lost me as customer by advertising in this way.

      I don't, and I suspect most people don't, ever block text based ads. I've no problem with them. Thus Google's ads get through. Google understands that text based ads do not bug most people, hence it's always been their ideology to use them.

      If adblocking of moving images is more widespread, then text based ads become the primary way of reaching customers. That's a win for everyone -- especially Google. (the only losers are low-life flash ad designers, whose unemployment is most welcome.)

    2. Re:FireFox extensions by Sentry21 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only reason to block ads for most people is because they are distracting.

      The reason that I block ads, aside from being ugly and distracting from content, or from being intrusive, is because 99% of the time when a page is insanely slow to load, it's because it's waiting on some Javascript or image from the ad server, which is apparently overloaded.

      Most of the time when I try to load a page and it won't load, it's an indicator that ad blocking is off. I also block Google Analytics and Digg badges as well.

      I don't, and I suspect most people don't, ever block text based ads. I've no problem with them. Thus Google's ads get through. Google understands that text based ads do not bug most people, hence it's always been their ideology to use them.

      'Most people' (that use ads) use predefined ad lists, which include Google ads. Unless a covenant was reached to remove Google from those lists, they'd stay there; the only other option would be for Google to make its own adblock list without its own ads and ship that to the browser.

      Though imagine if a company that was the biggest ad provider on the internet released software that let users browse the internet with only their own ads. I can see some people getting pissed off about that.

    3. Re:FireFox extensions by Dwedit · · Score: 3, Informative

      SRWare Iron (A modified version of Chrome) has built in adblocking, but it's nowhere near as good as what Adblock provides.

    4. Re:FireFox extensions by argiedot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't, and I suspect most people don't, ever block text based ads. I've no problem with them.

      With newer filter-sets, people no longer block anything that annoys them - they just block the whole lot.

    5. Re:FireFox extensions by De+Lemming · · Score: 4, Informative

      Via an older article on Cnet I found the Chrome extensions document, spotlighted on November 29th by Google programmer Aaron Boodman. From the document:

      Use Cases
      The following lists some types of extensions that we'd like to eventually support:

      • Bookmarking/navigation tools: Delicious Toolbar, Stumbleupon, web-based history, new tab page clipboard accelerators
      • Content enhancements: Skype extension (clickable phone numbers), RealPlayer extension (save video), Autolink (generic microformat data - addresses, phone numbers, etc.)
      • Content filtering: Adblock, Flashblock, Privacy control, Parental control
      • Download helpers: video helpers, download accelerators, DownThemAll, FlashGot
      • Features: ForecastFox, FoxyTunes, Web Of Trust, GooglePreview, BugMeNot

      This list is non-exhaustive, and we expect it to grow as the community expresses interest in further extension types.

      Emphasis mine.

    6. Re:FireFox extensions by lilmunkysguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Have advertisers sued VCR manufacturers, Tivo, etc?

      Yes.

      NBC, ABC and CBS filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in California against Sonicblue, claiming the ReplayTV 4000 would violate their copyrights by allowing users to distribute copies of programs over the Internet. The networks also complained that technology in the personal video recorder can automatically strip out commercials. In a joint statement, the networks said the device "violates the rights of copyright owners in unprecedented ways" and "deprives the copyright owners of the means by which they are paid for their creative content and thus reduces the incentive to create programming and make it available to the public."

      http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/11/48065

    7. Re:FireFox extensions by RebelWebmaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Please don't use Filterset.G. There are far better options out there.
      http://adblockplus.org/en/faq_project#filterset.g

  6. Good News After An Understandable Delay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Having been checking out the incredibly high quality Google Chrome code and what it is doing it is understandable that there was going to be a delay for other platforms.

    The reason Chrome is so much faster than other browsers - especially even after days of constant webbrowsing is all the platform specific work with memory protection and threading.

    I've honestly been using the Chrome source code as a tremendous learning tool to get up to speed on how to write modern threaded application code.

    The delay will be worth it when you get your hands on it. Switching to Chrome had that feeling of running your old apps on a new and faster computer. It just feels so smooth no matter how many tab or windows are open or how much Javascript is running in the background.

  7. Mental cost of switching by TeknoHog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because nobody using Mac or Linux has ever switched from a different operating system.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  8. Re:Market Share by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Informative

    The browser shell is raw win32. No abstraction or other platform considerations.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  9. extensions by burris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wake me when they have NoScript, AdBlock+/ElementHiderHelper, Repagination, ChickenFoot, FoxyProxy, RefControl, etc...

  10. Re:Why bother on the Mac? by buddyglass · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's benefit to having broad OS availability. Safari is available on OS X and Windows but not Linux. Safari is also pretty closed as far as plug-ins are concerned. So is Chrome, at the moment, but they're working to rectify that. If Safari ran on Linux and had an open platform for add-ons, I'd be more inclined to agree with you that there's no need for Chrome.

    Presumably Google's other motivation is to provide a run-time environment for future web-based applications they might release. If they own the browser on which these applications will run, they can more easily remedy any bugs or performance concerns that crop up instead of having to wait for a third-party to take care of them.

  11. Re:If only... by buddyglass · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who needs the Google Talk IM client when its an open API and you can use Pidgin or Adium?

  12. Not Intel-only on the Mac, please by DiLLeMaN · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, I know I'm hopelessly behind the times with my *ancient* G4 mini, but if there's a group that needs a faster browser, it's us "obsolete computer users". Obsolete meaning the computer, not the user.

    I know that x86 is the way forward, but I see more and more Intel-only apps that make me wonder what exactly prohibited the devs from making it a Universal Binary.

    Microsofts Live Mesh comes to mind (I wanted to install it to compare it to Dropbox); not even a decent message stating that it was Intel-only, it just said that my device wasn't supported or something. Dropbox on Linux/PPC is another culprit, btw.

    I'm hoping V8 gets ported to PPC as well, although I'm somewhat worried that it won't, since a JS interpreter sounds a bit more involved than a file syncing thingy.

    --
    /var/run/twitter.sock is a twitter socket puppet.
  13. Re:only IM, no video, no voice by buddyglass · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Honestly, if you want voice, pick up a phone. Or use Skype if your motivation is to avoid charges. I'll cede that Google Talk (the client) isn't 100% available on non-Windows platforms. But I'll add that the portion 99% of its users actually use, i.e. IM, is 100% available on non-Windows platforms by way of Pidgin, Adium, etc.

  14. Re:only IM, no video, no voice by Jeremy+Visser · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only reason Pidgin can't do it is that they haven't supported it yet (and probably won't, because the devs are very stuck up).

    Ever heard of libjingle? It's the "video and voice" component of Google Talk, which is basically an extension to XMPP.

    Any client that supports libjingle (I use Empathy, see screenshot) can do voice calls to Google Talk users.