Application portability software developer CodeWeavers has ported a version of Google's Chrome Web browser to Mac OS X and Linux and made the software available for free.
(Credit: Google)
The company, which specialises in aiding software to work on other operating systems, has achieved renown for allowing applications such as Microsoft Office to run on Linux.
In a blog post today, the company's chief executive Jeremy White said it had published freely available Mac and Linux versions of Chromium, the open source version of Google's Chrome. Google has said it was working on Mac and Linux versions of Chrome, but it has not published them just yet.
White said the company had been looking for a way to show off the maturity of the Wine emulation software it uses when Google released Chrome.
"On Thursday, September 4th, I called a company fire drill," he wrote. "I said I wanted to ship ported versions of Chromium for Mac and Linux, and I wanted to do it as fast as possible. By Friday, we had a first working build." After ironing out a number of major bugs, the software was ready after a week.
"Not only does this give Mac and Linux users a chance to see what all the hype is about, it also lets the world see just how far Wine has come and how powerful it truly can be," wrote White. "In just 11 days, we were able to bring a modern Windows application across to Mac and Linux."
As expected, Chrome has inspired developers to add their energy to the "eco-system" and to do it in a way that greatly benefits consumers.
Codeweaver's release of Chromium for the Mac and Linux is a great example.
Good job Codeweavers! Good job Google.
This reminds me of the line from Jurassic ParK, "Life will find a way"...but not it seems "Chrome will find a way".
Michael Adams
www.chromevoice.com