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Posts Tagged ‘Mac Beta’

New Chrome for Mac beta syncs bookmarks, adds extensions

The Google Chrome team has announced another beta release of Chrome for Mac, adding a number of oft-requested features. Chrome for Mac now supports extensions, which allow adding a number of additional browser features as needed. The team also added support for Chrome’s cloud-based bookmark syncing feature, which works across Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux platforms.

In addition to extension support and bookmark sync, Google has created bookmark and cookie managers “that feel completely at home on the Mac,” according to engineer Mark Mentovai. There’s also a new task manager for keeping track of all your open tabs. However, feature additions haven’t taken away focus from providing a “snappy, safe, and simple browsing experience,” Mentovai said.

Google’s browser is generally available in three different versions: stable, beta, and developer preview. The new features have been available in Windows and Linux betas of the browser, and have been incubating in the developer previews for Mac OS X before bubbling up into beta. Google has yet to release an official stable release for Mac OS X.

Our look at the last beta release revealed a fairly stable and fast browsing experience, only hampered by some missing features—namely extensions and bookmark syncing. If you haven’t yet given Chrome a chance, you may want to download the latest beta and give it a try. Current beta users should be automatically updated to version 5.0.307 within the next 24 hours.

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Firefox 3.6 now available

Filed under: Software, Internet, Internet Tools

Head on over to Getfirefox.com, Firefox fans. Version 3.6 of your favorite browser is now ready. The video explains the major changes in this version, but here are the highlights.

1. One-click themes. Using the Personals Gallery, you can assign a new look and theme to Firefox with a click. The way it works couldn’t be simpler. Roll over any theme to preview it and click to commit. I found most of them annoying, but I’m old and crotchety.
2. Out-of-date plugin warnings. This super-handy feature lets you know when you’ve got an out-of-date and potentially virus-friendly plugin installed and provides an update link.
3. Speed! This version promises improved speed with javascript, rendering and startup.

There’s more, of course, so watch the video above. Or better yet, grab a copy and start playing. In my extremely limited testing, content heavy pages did seem to load quicker (I typically visit StarWars.com), and all of my plugins continued to work. If you experience any issues or have a plugin that refuses to work, please let us (and your fellow Firefox users) know.

The Mac beta became available last year on Halloween (spooky) and the final release candidate dropped on January 11, 2009.

TUAWFirefox 3.6 now available originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SnagIt Goes Mac: Check Out The Best Screen Capture App Available

TechSmith, the makers of powerful screencast recording software Camtasia and screen capture app SnagIt, announced this morning that a beta version of SnagIt is now available for the Mac. The Windows version costs $50 but the Mac beta is free for now. It’s great.

If you’ve used Skitch or Little Snapper, SnagIt seems much more full-featured. The best parts I’ve seen so far are far more font options and really easy composite image creation.

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The company’s demo video is below. This is just beta software and hopefully it will be more stable and less clunky than early versions of TechSmith’s free cross-platform video and image product Jing Project. The recently released Camtasia for Mac was very well done and appears quite stable.

One thing that’s missing is the ability to quickly post an image to Flickr or any other online site. That would be nice and is a feature that competitors offer. Easy click and drag resize is something that SnagIt could pick up from other services as well. All in all, though, this looks like a very nice product.

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Google’s Busy Week

I thought December was supposed to be a quiet month, where people go on vacation, and companies don’t launch new things. I was wrong. This week is shaping up to be a very busy one for Google as they could have as many as three substantial launches in three days.

Monday: Tomorrow morning, the company is holding an event in Mountain View, CA to talk about the evolution of its search product over the years. That may sound ho-hum, but they are also promising to introduce a “few new features that we hope will change the way people search in the future.” Presenting will be no less than Google VP of Search Products and User Experience, Marissa Mayer, Google Fellow, Amit Singhal, and Google VP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra. All heavy hitters.

Is this Google’s answer to the Bing event last week, where they showed off the impressive looking new Bing Maps beta product? You can bet that whatever they unveil, it won’t involve Silverlight. And I wouldn’t bet against it involving Twitter in some way, just like Microsoft’s announcements did.

Tuesday: This is far from certain, but word is that Tuesday could be the day Chrome for Mac beta finally gets released. We know the launch is imminent, as the beta version is now complete and the team has moved on to getting the left-out features working. But there is one bug that might hold up the launch (it popped up late after all the beta blocker bugs were previously eliminated).

It’s definitely worth noting that on the Chromium Development Calendar, December 8 (this Tuesday) is the date listed for “4.0 Beta to Beta Channel.” Chrome 4.0 is already in beta testing for Windows, and before that launched in early November, the calendar featured the same message. No word on the Linux build, but that could certainly go beta on Tuesday as well. Also worth noting is that 4.0 is scheduled to go “stable” on January 12, so that may be the Chrome 4.0 official launch (at least for Windows).

Wednesday: This is the day that Google will officially launch Chrome Extensions, is the latest thing we’re hearing. We noted over the weekend that at some point this week (and probably mid-week) this would happen, and it looks like Wednesday (and possibly Wednesday evening) is the day.

The one-two punch of launching Chrome for Mac beta and then having Chrome Extensions would be nice, except for the fact that Chrome for Mac beta won’t support them right away. But the latest builds of Chromium do, so everyone will be able to try out the new extensions at launch.

The Rest: So that’s the first three days of the week with possible things on each day. And if you count Sunday as the start of the week, I guess you could throw in Google CEO Eric Schmidt finally joining Twitter as another event.

Is Google going to give us a breather on Thursday and Friday? Who knows, but at this rate they’ll probably announce that they are dropping all support for IE on Christmas.

[photo: flickr/bramus]

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Only 8 Bugs Stand In The Way Of Chrome For Mac Beta

We know that a beta version of Chrome for Mac is due at least by the end of December, but today brings more confirmation that it may be even closer than that. Mike Pinkerton, the guy leading the Chrome for Mac team, has just tweeted out that there are only “8 remaining M4 Mac beta blockers! Go team! #chrome”

This means that there are only 8 things standing in the way of Chome for Mac going beta. “M4″ stands for “milestone 4,” which is how they phrase “version 4,” which the Mac beta build of Chrome will be (the current dev channel version is 4.0.249.12, for example).

It’s not entirely clear what these 8 things are as the Chrome Mac Status page hasn’t been updated in a while, and the known issues listed include things that are meant for milestone 5, not 4. But in early November, Pinkerton noted that there were 20-some M4 blockers. So it’s possible we’re just a couple weeks away, and maybe even days (again, depending on the bugs) from those getting wiped out and Chrome for Mac going beta.

In the latest Mac Chromium (the open source project Chrome is based on) builds, everything appears to be really solid. A few notable things still not working include the Bookmark Manager (this is one of the M4 blockers) and full screen mode. But extensions are working, and an extension manager was recently added. The browsing experience is fast, and seems quite stable.

Earlier this month, Nick Baum, a Chrome Product Manager, wrote on a Google Group page for Chrome extensions that Chrome for Mac would have a “Beta launch in early December.” That appears to still be on track.

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