A little less than a month ago, we reported that a beta version of Chrome for Mac might be released in December, and sure enough, it’s arrived. Something “[f]or Mac OS X 10.5 or later, Intel only” became available today.
Considering that Chrome was introduced in September of 2008, this development was a long time coming. Google likely hurt the adoption rate of Chrome by ignoring a market segment that’s known for preferring unusual tech and trying stuff out early in its lifecycle.
Still, so long as Mac users don’t bear too much of a grudge, this will probably just fall into the “better late than never” category. Also, as we noted while speculating about the beta release in November, the catch-up process may proceed quickly from now on; since it took Google about three months to remove the beta tag from the first version of Chrome, a finalized Chrome for Mac could become available by the end of February.
In other Chrome news, a Chrome for Linux beta has been released, and extensions finally debuted (also in beta). A post on the Official Google Blog explained, “If you’re on a PC or a Linux machine, you can check out more than 300 extensions in the gallery, including a few cool, useful and cute extensions.”
All in all, this looks to be a pretty big day for Google’s Web browser.
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