14 DAY TRIAL // The Google Chrome Dev channel has been updated to version 12.0.725.0 for all supported platforms, including Mac OS X. The new builds come with an updated V8 JavaScript engine, code cleanup, and more known issues than anyone would care to know.
Changes common to all Chrome 12 builds include the updated V8 to version 3.2.6.0 and spring cleaning in the code - “lots of code cleanup and refactoring under the covers,” noted Anthony Laforge, of the Google Chrome team.
V8 is sort of like the heart of Google Chrome, whereas WebKit - the page rendering engine - is its soul.
Written in C++ Google's open source JavaScript engine implements ECMAScript as specified in ECMA-262, 3rd edition, and runs on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and later (Snow Leopard), Windows XP and Vista, and Linux systems that use IA-32 or ARM processors.
No Mac-specific updates are mentioned. However, for Windows users only, the software engineers handling the browser are hard at work polishing up the tab multi-select function, Laforge said.
As for the aforementioned known Issues listed in the release notes, those include:
Regression: Bidi Chrome UI lost directional diplay in menu and DOMUI and about: page functions Regression: NACL apps are no longer working Regression: Autofill fails on certain forms Regression: Autocomplete sometimes pops up in the upper left corner
As usual, those who may want to learn more about additional changes are encouraged to stop by the SVN log of all revisions.
Mac users eager to run Chrome will require an Intel-based machine with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (all incremental versions are supported, including Mac OS X 10.6.7), at least 128 MB of RAM, and roughly 100 MB of free hard disk space.
All available versions of Chrome for Mac (Dev, Beta, Stable) can be downloaded using the link below.