Google Chrome for MacGoogle Chrome for Mac has finally landed. We’ve already peeped the official video, and mourned the lack of extensions in the search giant’s new browser, but now the Google team behind has hit us with a few little facts about its time in development. Wonder what took them a year? Read on for the details.

Google Chrome for Mac, which is in beta for Intel machines running OS X 10.5 and above as of yesterday, has arrived a full 14 months after the first Windows release, but the engineers behind it haven’t just been twiddling their thumbs for a year: Google says the new Google Chrome for Mac required 73,804 lines of Apple computer specific code to be written and finely pored over with a toothcomb.


Google Chrome for Mac is here!


In that time, Google Chrome for Mac has also gone through 29 different developer builds, and needed Mac-only bugs ironed out no fewer than 1,177 times. Mountainview even brought in a total of 60 external bug editors and code contributors to help out.

As for the hardware Google tested Google Chrome for Mac on? That’d be a Mac Mini. Or rather 64 Mac Minis, running new builds around the clock. Finally, the true measure of graft, number of cups of coffee consumed: 8,760. We’d have preferred they got on with making Google Chrome of Mac than counting every Starbucks supped, but we can’t really complain now that we’re pinging around at super speeds on Chrome on Snow Leopard at last.

Google Chrome for Mac is out now, and available here.

Out Now | £free | Google Chrome

  • Stewart

    Honestly, I don’t know why people bothered waiting for such a below-par, locked in browser like Chrome, when Opera is much faster, more secure, and better standards compliant, and is already out for OSX..

    http://www.opera.com/browser/download/?os=mac&ver=10.10&local=y

    • http://www.electricpig.co.uk Ben Sillis

      For me, it’s all about the tab handling, an unsung quality of Chrome. No other browser is as smooth switching tabs around and pulling them out into their own windows and back again. It’s something I do all the time, so am grateful for anything that makes it less clunky.

      • Stewart

        I would disagree, have you tried Operas tab handling, it’s awesome, including rearranging, locking and creating “Follower Tabs”, which is unique and incredibly useful. And of course, Opera comes with a trashcan for tabs, any closed tabs can be reopened that session, along with their history and even form data.

        http://help.opera.com/Linux/9.50/en/tabs.html

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