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Google Upgrades Chrome To Beta For OS X, Linux

Posted by timothy on from the browsing-is-what-cows-do dept.

wkurzius writes with this nugget from Mac Rumors: "As anticipated, Google has finally released an official beta version of its Chrome browser for Mac. The initial beta version, termed Build 4.0.249.30, requires Mac OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard, and is only compatible with Intel-based Macs." And hierofalcon writes with word that Chrome has also been made available as an official Linux Beta.

12 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Adblock by Nerdfest · · Score: 3, Informative

    Support for extensions is currently in development ...

  2. Works Great on Leopard by organgtool · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have been running one of the Chrome nightly builds on Leopard for several weeks and I am extremely impressed with its speed and stability. I have never had a single tab crash on me. I'm sure that people will complain about the lack of support for extensions compared to Firefox, and rightly so. But if you don't need many extensions, I highly recommend trying out Chrome.

    1. Re:Works Great on Leopard by FictionPimp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, I use google calendar, google search, google mail, google voice, google maps... If google doesn't know what I'm doing by now, they are doing something wrong.

  3. Re:Adblock by clone53421 · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... and per-tab processes for Firefox are also currently in development.

    I don’t think I’ll be switching any time soon, since I see per-tab processes as a nicety and adblock as a necessity.

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  4. Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates... by courcoul · · Score: 5, Informative

    Beware that the first time you run Chrome, it will install their Keystone auto-update facility, with which Google feels free to update whatever they want, whenever they want and however they want. Even when you're not running the browser, as the Keystone agent will launch itself automatically at system boot.

    You have been warned.

    1. Re:Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates... by psocccer · · Score: 5, Informative

      The OP might not be completely wrong, according to a dpkg-query -L google-chrome-beta it installs some stuff to /etc/cron.daily/google-chrome which apparently adds an extra source to your apt sources then updates google chrome based on some settings in your /etc/default/google-chrome. It also adds the source to /etc/apt/sources.list.d. Seems a bit invasive to me.

      --
      Free Online Woodworking Resources Directory
    2. Re:Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates... by the_crowbar · · Score: 3, Informative

      I just installed the beta from google.com and it installed an entry in /etc/crond.daily. The comments say it only reactivates the repository after dist-upgrades disable it. I.E. intrepid->jaunty From a quick read of the script that is what it does.

      Cheers,
      the_crowbar

      --
      Have you read the Moderator Guidelines
    3. Re:Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates... by Temporal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You make it sound evil. Most people don't want to be nagged with constant update reminders. In fact, most people will ignore those reminders, leaving them vulnerable to security exploits. Hence, Google has built an updater which can automatically install updates in the background. Remarkably, it manages to do this without ever asking you to reboot or even to restart the program being updated, which cannot be said of any other software updater I've ever seen.

    4. Re:Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates... by clone53421 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The complaint is that it is a separate updater process, it runs itself at boot time, and it is difficult to prevent it from doing so.

      Firefox, by comparison, updates itself when it starts up, and periodically checks for updates while you are online.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    5. Re:Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates... by dan325 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I am personally not deeply troubled by this behavior. I like having the latest version of Chrome running on my machine. That being said, they really should let users opt out (or, better yet, make it an opt-in on first launch) of automatic updates. And, to my knowledge the keystone auto updating is the behavior on Mac and Windows. In Linux, it just uses apt. I don't have any issue with the Linux behavior, except that they might add a dialog informing the user that they're modifying /etc/apt/sources.list during the install. You have to remember that there are two sides to this coin: with auto updates turned on, you are vulnerable to any bugs that may be introduced by an update and to any nefarious / evil conduct from Google as darkly insinuated by the above poster. Conversely, without auto updates, you are vulnerable to any security issues that the updates fix. Frankly, the later concerns me a lot more than the former, and I suspect most of the non-tin-foil-hat-wearing community would concur.

  5. Re:Adblock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not to mention Google's latest comments about people that don't do anything have nothing to hide.

    Link:
    http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/08/0127219/Google-CEO-Says-Privacy-Worries-Are-For-Wrongdoers

  6. Re:Adblock by clone53421 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Software should update itself when it runs. It should not rely on a separate boot-time updater.

    The only software that should update itself by a boot-time updater is the OS itself.

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.