Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.

7 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. 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.
  2. 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 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.

    3. 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.
  3. 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.

  4. 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.