Chrome to head to Macs and Linux next year

published 9 January 2009

Google hopes to release Mac and Linux versions of its Chrome browser by the first half of next year.

According to company executives, the Mac and Linux versions of Chrome are being developed in parallel, and are currently at the level of "test shells", capable of showing web pages but doing little else.

"That team now is able to render most web pages pretty well. But in terms of the user experience, it's very basic," Brian Rakowski, Chrome's product manager, said in media reports. "We have not spent any time building out features. We're still iterating on making it stable and getting the architecture right."

Google has also released version two of Chrome to developers. Version two comes complete with support for "Greasemonkey" scripts, which will allow users to customise the browser with add-ons.