14 DAY TRIAL // Mark Larson, of the Google Chrome Team, has issued a note announcing that the Google Chrome Beta channel for Mac and Linux has been promoted to version 5.0.307.7. Directing fans to the Google Chrome Blog for the full scoop, Larson posts not only what’s new on Mac since the last Beta update, but also makes a highlight of the Mac and Linux fixes for this release.
“We've been adding many of the features that were missing on the Mac, and working hard on making Google Chrome on both platforms more reliable,” Larson writes. “We've spent a lot of time making plug-ins (like Adobe Flash Player) more reliable,” Google’s man reveals. He discloses that, since the last Beta update, extensions have arrived, as have abilities like Bookmark sync, Bookmark manager, Cookie manager and Task manager.
Larson proceeds to listing the highlights for the Linux version of Chrome, which include: a hang on many sites using custom fonts – now fixed; improvements in GTK theme mode, using system colors in more places (new tab page, highlights, scroll bars); loading plugins from ~/.config/$PRODUCT_NAME/Plugins; improved complex text support, fixing a number of bugs in Hebrew/Arabic/Hindi/etc. display; killing runaway tabs before it kills the browser.
As for the Mac-specific tweaks, Larson reveals that the Google Chrome team has been able to implement support for the pinch-to-zoom gesture on Apple MacBooks, while Cmd-three finger swipe now properly opens prev/next page in a new tab.
To get the latest version of the Google Chrome web browser, use the link below. Chrome works on Intel-machines only and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later. Chrome for Mac is still beta software, therefore users are advised to exercise caution when utilizing the browser, or at least not rely on it for important tasks.