macnn/electronista
12/10/2008, 12:05pm, EST
Wednesday, December 10thGoogle Chrome to leave beta, preload on PCs
Google's Chrome web browser is soon to exit beta thanks partly to a plan to expand its reach, company VP Marissa Miller has told TechCrunch at this year's Le Web conference in Paris. The WebKit-based browser has been relatively slow to gain share since its debut in September but will be marked as a finished product on an upcoming release to let PC makers bundle an officially completed version with their systems.
Which PC makers will opt for Chrome aren't named by Miller.
The expansion is a further blow to Microsoft, which through antitrust rulings is forced to allow default browsers besides Internet Explorer with new computers. These have typically been limited to Firefox and the now-defunct Netscape but will now potentially have a more commercially supported alternative that also emphasizes universal web standards, the historical weaknesses of Microsoft's browser.
Chrome is currently available only for Windows but is being ported to Linux and Mac OS X with an estimated launch early in 2009.
Filed under: software
Other story tags: Microsoft, Google, Firefox, mozilla, Internet Explorer, Chrome, WebKit, Netscape
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VP??
Marisa Miller works for Google? Now that's just not fair, what else are those guys going to take over?
Mac version?
Any news on the Mac version? For that matter, the Linux version?
Ugh...
We all need another browser like we need a friggin hole in the head!
blows...
my mind that an application based on core OS X/Apple functionality still doesn't have a version that actually RUNS on Apple computers. One that has been in beta for several months and is about to go release.
mac version progress
@paulc, the reason is that Goog made tons of changes to WebKt to make it work in a multi-process architecture. There's a lot of work to do to make it run multi-processing on the Mac (it isn't a port, it's a rewrite).
You can check up on status updates here:
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/MacDetailedStatus
Meanwhile, use Stainless:
http://www.stainlessapp.com/
bullshit!
Saddino: if Google wanted their own home grown browser why would they use WebKit? Even over Mozilla? Makes no sense.
And talking of nonsense "it's a rewrite" -- do you understand how open source, or heck even programming in general, works? Maybe you think that is you open a document in Word and then save it you've "rewritten" it?
Jeez.