Chrome is the best browser on the Windows platform. Faster, lighter, and prettier than that ponderous FireFox, the terrible Internet Explorer, and the horrific Safari, it has been my browser of choice almost since its very first day in the public eye. The other major platforms have been awaiting the Chrome love for some time now, Linux especially. Anyone who knows the Linux community, would know that nothing burns their collective backsides like Windows having something that they cannot have. Their good news: the Linux build of Chrome will now turn on and semi-function.
OF course, I say that not to knock the project. Us lazy Windows users are quite accustomed to having the newest-fastest-greatest software just appear on the horizon and drop into our startup folders. Linux users have to go out and build their own damn software on the occasion, and I respect them greatly for it. As they are constructing Chrome from a vague idea and a webkit backing, not ending up with Safari is a feat in and of itself.
How far along is Team Linux? Well, farther than I had been expecting. As Ben Goodger put it, developing a single application for the seemingly endless Linux builds and distro’s can be a bit of a “clusterfuck,” trying to get one app to work over so many many many many different versions. Imagine trying to design one after market car door handle for every version of the Camry ever made, ever. It is a challenge.
But, the project forges on, according to Ars the Linux browser can now “ I was able to load pages, open new tabs and windows, use the browser’s full-page zoom, download files, view and manage history, and run the Incognito privacy mode.” This is actually a pretty fair explanation of the earlier Windows Chrome builds, so we have a solid start. Keep going Team Linux, all the best in your pursuits. Excuse, I am going off to alpha test the latest Chrome build for Windows, send me an email when you get there in a year of two, we can trade notes.
