More than a year after they threw back the curtain on the Windows beta, Google has finally unleashed a beta version of their Chrome browser for the Mac. So, was it worth the wait? And more importantly, in its present state, is Chrome compelling enough to make you move from Safari, Firefox, Opera, et al? Let’s find out.
Chrome comes to the Mac a bit on the tardy side, having launched for Windows in September, 2008 and promised for the Mac earlier this year. Developer builds of Mac Chrome have been available since this past summer, but most users have steered clear of those buggy alpha versions which lacked many features.
Google has tapped into the same WebKit engine used by Safari, but has added an extra layer of security that means a crash in one tab won’t bring down the whole browser (in theory, anyway--We were able to bring down the whole browser on at least one occasion, but remember this is only beta software).
Chrome also does away with the dedicated search box, instead smartly enlisting the web address location field for double duty as a search entry box as well. Another nice touch is the "incognito mode" for new windows, to prevent Chrome from retaining any browsing history. You can easily distinguish such windows from regular ones by the bluish tint that appears on the upper toolbar.
For power users, the early buzz on Google’s Chrome for Mac beta has more to do with what it can’t do--namely, support for extensions. As it stands now, Chrome for Mac isn’t capable of running such cool, potentially life-changing utilities as 1Password (for password & login management) or Xmarks (to sync your bookmarks with other browsers), or the host of extensions already available. Mac support for extensions is coming--they already work in developer builds and are available today for the Windows and Linux versions of Chrome. Developers are also working feverishly to make their programs compatible with Chrome.
The lack of extensions shouldn’t stop the average user from at least giving Chrome a try, starting with acquiring your very own free copy, a modest 17.6 MB download. Of course, that assumes you are running the required Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 or above (including Snow Leopard) on an Intel-based Mac -- pre-Leopard and PowerPC users will have to remain content with their existing browser.
Another feature found in the Windows version, but lacking on the Mac platform is the Bookmark Manager. This wouldn’t be such a glaring omission if the user could install something like Xmarks to handle the task, but for now it means that once you’ve imported your bookmarks from another browser, you’re stuck using them as-is. Google Gears is also missing in action, which isn’t a surprise given Google’s recent announcement to end Gears development, as well as the fact that it doesn’t work under Snow Leopard.
Favorites, bookmarks & browsing history can easily be imported from Safari, and Firefox users also have the option to port over their cookies, saved passwords and search engines as well. When we tried importing from Safari, Chrome appeared to hang for what seemed like an exceptionally long time considering we were only importing favorites & bookmarks (we turned browsing history off). For a few moments, we wondered if the application had locked up, but the import completed successfully and we were off & running.
The beta version of Chrome for Mac (also known as Build 4.0.249.30) launches quickly--much faster than Safari or Firefox on our 2.53GHz MacBook Pro test machine, although that’s to be expected to some degree without extensions or other plug-ins to slow things down. JavaScript is also fast, which should come as no surprise for a WebKit-based browser--Chrome and Safari are both zippier than their browser cousins. We put the browser through its paces on a few websites that are notoriously sluggish to begin with--namely Facebook and MySpace--and Chrome feels on par with Safari (and to a lesser degree, Firefox).
The HTML5 demo pages we found online worked without a hitch, although we were able to crash the whole browser in at least one case-- ironically, while trying to go back to a previous page from a Google-owned YouTube page. However, after restarting Chrome, a message popped up asking if we wanted to restore all of my previous pages and just like that, we were back to where we were in the first place. Our system already had Adobe Flash Player 10 installed and it also worked without a hitch, and playback seemed a bit less sluggish than Safari 4.
Unlike Safari and Firefox, downloads in Google Chrome appear at the bottom of the screen within the browser itself instead of a separate window. Click the "Show All Downloads" link at the bottom right and a list of your downloads appear inside a new tab. You can opt to show a file in the Finder or remove it from the list, and if you have a lot of downloads listed, you can easily search among them to find the one you’re looking for.
If you don’t like the default look of the browser, there is a gallery of new themes online with nearly 100 artist-created Chrome themes, as well as a number of more generic ones provided by Google themselves. It’s a nice touch and we tried a few of them out, but quickly returned to the default look--most of the themes are a bit too distracting for day-to-day use, but your mileage may vary (especially if you’re a younger user who wants everything they touch to be customized accordingly).
At the end of the day, Google still has its work cut out for it with Chrome on the Mac. It’s a nice preview of a fast, stable new browser and a glimpse at the possibilities to come. However, it’s not quite expandable enough to replace your current browser, unless your needs are fairly basic. But if the Windows and Linux versions are any indication, the future looks bright for Chrome on the Mac, indeed.
