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Chrome On the Way For Mac and Linux
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.
Is this a sign of the apocalypse?
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"
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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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.
Who needs the Google Talk IM client when its an open API and you can use Pidgin or Adium?
Have advertisers sued VCR manufacturers, Tivo, etc?
Yes.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/11/48065
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.
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.
True. But it's horrid across many platforms!
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Please don't use Filterset.G. There are far better options out there.
http://adblockplus.org/en/faq_project#filterset.g
Google is a customer / partner of Mozilla. Mozilla offers a service (default search engine) and Google pays a fee for that service.
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.
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.