Google Upgrades Chrome To Beta For OS X, Linux

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.

Re:Adblock

[Nerdfest]

Support for extensions is currently in development ...

Works Great on Leopard

[organgtool]

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.

Re:Adblock

[clone53421]

... 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.

Re:Works Great on Leopard

[Trev311]

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.

Or if you want to not give google more information you can wait until SRWare* or someone else releases it without all the tracking (and google updater) crap in it for Liunx/OSX. SRWare releases Chrome without the google-bits in it as Iron

Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates...

[courcoul]

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.

Re:Adblock

[nate_in_ME]

On my computer, Chrome just auto-updated today to 4.0.239.30(Windows Version) and in the "new tab" display, it advertises at the bottom that extensions are now available. No reliable ad-blocking solution yet(just a couple with dodgy reviews), but I imagine its only a matter of time. There was one specifically to remove the ads on Facebook profiles, which does seem to work quite well so far.

Iron.

[nawitus]

If you don't want to be spied by google every second, download the Iron browser. It's based on Chrome code base, but has spying disabled.

Re:Adblock

[Anonymous Coward]

Answer me this, please. Why would anyone who likes this browser ever use the Google-released version, for any reason??

Why would they not use this [wikipedia.org] instead? No really, I want to understand this.

Re:Adblock

[mdm-adph]

Because SRWare only releases updates to Iron every now and then. I don't think there's even an auto-update.

Re:Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates...

[just_another_sean]

He didn't say it ran constantly, just that it did not depend on the browser running. Check your cron tables*.

* I'm not running Chrome so I can neither confirm or deny the GPP but AC's post above is certainly not enough
to convince me that GPP is definitely wrong.

Re:Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates...

[psocccer]

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.

Re:Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates...

[the_crowbar]

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

Re:Iron.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least that's what SRWare claims - I haven't heard about anyone reviewing their code.
They only provide an archive on rapidshare, no source repository, no changelog.

news at 10

[Anonymous Coward]

who needs an "official" release? would you mess around with apt's keyring? i use this for about three months. it's fast and mostly stable on Debian lenny and squeeze. the v8 java script engine is a magnitude more powerful and faster than iceweasel's. put it in ~/bin or something. it's worth trying:

http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-linux/LATEST [chromium.org]

Re:Adblock

[clone53421]

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.

Re:SRware Iron for Linux has been in beta since No

[Anonymous Coward]

(Remember, Iron is the no-phone-home, no-spyware, privacy-assured derivative of Chrome.)

Remember Iron has a closed development process. The source is only released as an archive on rapidshare and I'm not aware of anyone ever reviewing it. There's no issue tracking either, just a moderated forum.
I wouldn't trust a browser from people that can't operate a source code repository.

Re:Beware Google's penchant for auto-updates...

[93 Escort Wagon]

Oh, and I also discovered a file at /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.google.keystone.daemon.plist, which runs "/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/MacOS/GoogleSoftwareUpdateDaemon" and can be disabled in the same manner described above.

(BTW-- I have a few google apps including Google Earth installed, so I'm not sure which installed what. But this is what I've found so far...)

I just installed Chrome on my MacBook Air, which doesn't have Google Earth installed... and I don't have that file on my system.

I've poked around all the various and sundry locations used by cron, anacron, and launchd - nothing. So I'm guessing Google Earth was the culprit in your case - the Chrome drag-and-drop install looks clean.

Chrome on Linux is not in wine

[caseih]

Wine? What does wine have to do with it? Chrome for linux is a GTK-based (for better or worse) native linux app.