Update: Some readers point out that Chrome 4.0 on OS X is still in pre-alpha stages of development and shouldn't be compared to final products. Frequent crashes and the lack of some rudimentary functionality means there's still a fair way to go before we start advising Average Joseph to haul ass into the OS X world of Chrome.īut it's getting there, and we reckon there's only a few more months of development to go before it's ready to go public, at least as a beta.
#Google chrome os x software
You'd be forgiven for thinking version 4.0 of any piece of software meant it was sufficiently far through its developmental cycle to recommend, but it's really, really not. You can import bookmarks when installing Chrome on OS X for the first time - this is a truly remarkable breakthrough - but there's still no easy way to simply import an HTML file containing bookmarks exported from another browser. Problem is, it's still criminally inefficient, resulting in poor frame rates, excessive CPU usage and choppy playback - three issues not present in Safari or Firefox on OS X.īut this new build provides slightly better bookmarking functionality. This is now a feature of Chrome on OS X.īelow them on the PC version was a box of recently closed tabs and an adjacent box with nothing but the question, 'What will we put here?' This empty box doesn't exist in OS X, and the box of recently closed tabs is much smaller.Ĭhrome 4.0 has better support for Adobe Flash now (ironically, the first version of the browser on OS X didn't work with Flash, meaning Google's own YouTube was unsupported). Within version 3.0 on the PC, the Web pages you most frequently visit are displayed as six thumbnail images and can be rearranged and 'pinned' to your heart's content. The 'speed dial' homescreen - the default screen when you open a new tab or window - differs a little on the Mac, however. They spice up the look and give Chrome the option for some extra OS X-suited gloss. Chrome's themes and skins are universally supported across each platform using a standard file format. Keeping things in some sort of context, Firefox version 3.5.2 on OS X scored 1,508ms and Opera 10 beta 3 scored 5,958ms.Īs on PC, so on Mac. Only 4 per cent faster than its PC brother, sure, but 34 per cent faster than Safari 4.0.3, which scored 886ms on the same 2.0GHz Intel MacBook. It completed the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark in just 657ms.
When benchmarking Chrome 4.0's rendering speed on a PC last week, it obliterated its previous record and scored 100/100 on the Acid3 standards-compliancy tests. Web site developers more than ever rely on oodles of JavaScript technology to make their sites as responsive and functional as possible, so browsers need to be able to process and render it with constantly increasing efficiency. Big ones, like those spiders in Eight Legged Freaks, only even more hellacious.Īs we said the other day, speed is central to Chrome's manifesto.
#Google chrome os x for mac
Version 4.0 for Mac adds features we tested and discussed last week when the beta landed on PCs: an even faster version of Google's V8 Javascript engine, themes to skin Chrome in pretty colours, and a customisable 'speed dial' homepage.īut despite its 4.0 moniker and its impressive speed, Chrome for Mac is still riddled with bugs.
#Google chrome os x mac os
Safari, eat Google's dust - its Chrome Web browser - under its developmental title Chromium - has hit version 4.0 on the Mac, and our tests confirm it's the fastest browser in the world on both PC and now on Mac OS X.