Google fans who are Mac users got a treat Feb. 11 when Google launched a fresh beta of its Chrome browser for Mac with extensions and bookmark sync.
Existing Chrome for Mac users should be automatically updated to the new beta — officially Version 5.0.307 — within a day.
Google first launched Chrome for Windows in September 2008.
After hearing more than a year of grousing for not delivering a version of Chrome for Apple computers, Google delivered its first stable beta of Chrome for Mac last December.
Google then launched Google Chrome for Windows 4.0 in January, so clearly it’s Mac’s turn. With that, Google is also offering users more than 2,200 extensions from its Chrome gallery.
Extensions are lightweight applications that developers create that let users customize the Web browser. I profiled some of our favorite extensions on eWEEK here and here.
Google Chrome for Mac also finally offers bookmark sync, which lets power Web users who access several computers synchronize their bookmarks among many machines, even if those computers are running the Linux and Windows versions of Chrome.
Google Chrome for Mac is a big deal even for Windows and Linux users who love the version of Chrome running on their machines. Why?
Chrome in December topped 4.6 percent, lapping Apple’s Safari browser, then shot to 5.2 percent market share in January.
Chrome was trundling along for the last several months, then went from 3.9 percent to 5.2 percent after the arrival of the initial Chrome for Mac beta.
I’d argue that largely happened due to the availability of Chrome for Mac and perhaps some Linux machines. Whether that growth continues or flattens in 2010 is another story. Chrome Operating System netbooks should help greatly in 2011 if people buy them.
If you were leery about using Chrome for Mac before today, Google offers this instructional video to show users the ins and outs: