Chrome Plays 2nd Fiddle for Mac and Linux

by Frank Jovine on 01/14/2009 in Linux, Software

It comes at no surprise that the Mac OS and Linux will get their own Google Chrome browser, but not until June of 09. In hopes that Chrome would spend more development time releasing new extensions, it looks like this may slow the process up a bit with the development for the Mac OS and Linux.

Brian Rakowski, Chrome’s product manager, said the company wants to release Chrome for Mac and Linux before the first half of 2009 is up.

“That’s what we’ve been hoping for,” he said in an interview Friday. “Those two efforts proceeding in parallel. They’re at the same level of progress.”

The Mac and Linux versions are up to the level of a basic “test shell” that can show Web pages. But a test shell is pretty raw.

“That team now is able to render most Web pages pretty well. But in terms of the user experience, it’s very basic,” Rakowski said of the Mac version. “We have not spent any time building out features. We’re still iterating on making it stable and getting the architecture right.”

Another major missing piece of Chrome (as indicated above) is a framework to handle extensions, optional features that can be downloaded and plugged in to customize the browser. Extensions were one of the early advantages that helped Firefox blossom, it’s the top-requested feature for Chrome.

But a new cutting-edge version of Chrome, 2.0.156.1, gets support for some “Greasemonkey” scripts to customize the browser, a move that lays the groundwork for extensions, Rakowski said.

“We have user script support. That’s a baby step,” he said. As Chrome develops, Google will “expose more capabilities, then expose containers where can you have your own toolbar-like thing. You’ll see it evolve over time.”

It looks like will have to wait for those extensions a little longer.