For years Microsoft’s Internet Explorer dominated the browser market, but upstarts like Firefox, Opera and Apple’s Safari helped change that with faster performance and new features that attracted users. The newest browser competitor, Google’s Chrome, has also been making headway since its release in 2008, though the search giant has been relatively slow to support the Mac and Linux platforms. Datamation reports on what Google is doing to win over Mac and Linux users.
Google’s Chrome 5 Web browser is now available as a stable release for Mac and Linux, extending the availability of a stable version of the service to the three major operating systems.
The first stable release for Mac and Linux users comes after nearly a year of development in the dev and beta channels of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Chrome. The first versions of Chrome for Linux and Mac debuted in June 2009 and had only limited functionality. In contrast, Google has been offering Windows builds ever since the beginning of the Chrome effort in September 2008.
In addition to the availability for Mac and Linux stable users, Chrome 5 provides a number of feature and performance improvements to users on all supported platforms. Chrome 5 development began with the dev-channel version in February of this year. Then Chrome 5 beta debuted in May, boasting JavaScript performance gains.
