The chromium project has been in google code for a while now and people (mostly nerds) genuinely got excited when they heard there was a high performance web browser coming out from google. On release day we were greeted with a Windows only version and have been stuck with that ever since. Linux and Mac users have tried to use it in wine/darwine but with very little success.

But recently Linux and Mac ports of this browser have been found in the development channel of the chromium project. Check it out here but keep in mind that these are beta versions of the google chrome browser for these platforms at this time and they are feature incomplete (no flash plugin, no printing and a few other things) but it is a step in the right direction for fan-boys of all things google. Please note, too, that you need an Intel Mac with Mac OS 10.5.6 or later and the Linux flavour only comes in deb packages at this time.

What are my thoughts?

Well, I am not a fan of google chrome and while I will be using it for testing on all platforms it will not replace firefox as my daily browser of choice. It may sound a little cynical but I take serious points away from any program that doesn’t accept the default theme of my OS. (Adobe CS4, MS Office 2007 and Amarok 2 I’m looking at you…and hating it!) I choose my themes to look as pleasant as possible to my eyes and having a program that just decides it will break away from a standard just annoys me. The google chrome theme would probably look good in fedora…but there is no fedora package for it! (I know I can build from source. I’m just being annoyed, leave me alone.)

I know google chrome is lightweight and fast browser but it was Oscar Wilde that said that a cynic is “A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing” and I am one of those men at times. So if you like it, try it, tell me I’m wrong, but don’t come to me if something goes wrong with it.