Google releases buggy Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux

The Google team yesterday announced the release of Mac OS X and Linux versions of its Chrome browser. But the news suggests a relatively stable beta release is still some months away.

Under the heading "Danger: Mac and Linux builds available" the Google Chromium blog warns the versions available are not for the faint-hearted.

"In order to get more feedback from developers, we have early developer channel versions of Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux, but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."

"How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things, you won't yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print."

"Meanwhile, we'll get back to trying to get Google Chrome on these platforms stable enough for a beta release as soon as possible!"

The Mac version is a 11.3MB download, while the Linux version weighs in at 12.1MB. Google maintains three distinct channels for Chrome: developer, beta, and stable.

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