Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Freeware, UNIX / BSD, Developer
CrossOver creates Chromium just to show they can do it
Mike Rose and I were chatting about this on the Talkcast a few weeks back -- virtualization and emulation programmers get all John Locke from Lost when you try to tell them what's not possible. And so when the guys at CrossOver heard that Google wasn't releasing Chrome for the Mac, they decided to put together a release themselves. CrossOver Chromium is a proof-of-concept release of the Chromium browser (which Chrome is built off of) that allows Google's base code to run on Mac and Linux platforms.It's designed to show off just how well Wine works to bring Windows-based code to other platforms, and wake Google up to the fact that if they wanted to port Chrome over, they could. CrossOver says they did this to prove a point (and the point seems proven), but it's likely not only that Google wants to run the code natively, but that they wanted to focus on their largest audience first, which anyone can tell you is likely still the Windows crowd.
Even CrossOver says their version isn't ready for prime-time yet, they just wanted to show how fast it could be done. Let this be a lesson, Google: don't tell virtual software developers what they can't do.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Buckingham said 7:19PM on 9-16-2008
CrossOver/Wine is just a huge hack. Something that works doesn't mean it works right. Just look at the crap game ports that they have. None of them worked 100%.
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Jash Sayani said 3:34AM on 9-17-2008
Yeah. The first launch took about 20 minutes to analyze the system ! and the usual launch also takes lots of time compared to Safari/Firefox.
Anyways, hope to see a version by Google soon....
colouroflight said 10:20AM on 9-17-2008
So rather than be impressed by an incredibly complicated piece of software that has done an incredibly complicated task (remember that lots of the WinAPI is undocumented, forcing the Wine developers to reverse-engineer it), you choose to sit here and dismiss it as a "hack."
Of COURSE Wine is a hack. And I'd wager it's taken a lot more time, dedication and know-how to get it working this well than you can appreciate. Reimplementing the entire Windows API from scratch isn't exactly a day-long walk in the park.
Oneiroi said 10:50AM on 9-17-2008
This is true. I went ahead and bought Team Fortress 2 because I was dying to play it. I used the crossover demo and tried playing it...and the guy would just stare straight up at the sky and I couldn't make him move.
Yay for wasting money, thanks to that youtube video I saw of them playing TF2. I'm not going to spend more money for a program to try it again, even if Crossover's made improvements.
That being said, it can't be hard to get Chrome on mac. I think someone else has done it already too?
Ralph Jones said 7:38PM on 9-16-2008
This story was more entertaining when I read it on Slashdot.
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NutMac said 8:13PM on 9-16-2008
CrossOver is wrong. While it installed and ran under Linux, it crashed the entire system within few minutes of use. FAILED!
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Panda said 8:27PM on 9-16-2008
What? I thought Chrome was coming to the Mac. Why else would I have filled out the form notifying me when it becomes available?
http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/mac.html
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haszari said 8:32PM on 9-16-2008
"Let this be a lesson, Google: don't tell virtual software developers what they can't do."
Ahem what are you talking about here? Google are not discouraging people from making their own ports. They are however taking their time to do the Mac port properly though, right?
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Alex Mills said 8:34PM on 9-16-2008
Google Chrome is coming to the mac, check out the Google Mac blog for more information. As of Sept 2nd there is no actual Chrome app for the mac but it will be out very soon. They explain that the Windows version was used in the design/prototype stages so it has a significant head start over the Mac and Linux versions so stay tuned!
It's all just advertising for CrossOver
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Dustin N. said 8:53PM on 9-16-2008
I'm actually posting this from CrossOver Chromium and I can say, after having used it in Windows, to stay away from this until Google officially ports it to OS X. It runs decent, but the real areas where Chromium shines get lost in translation. The new tab page isn't nearly as fast as it should be, the context sensitive status bar at the bottom is broken, URLs and buttons don't fit properly in their elements on the window, mouse wheel scrolling is borked.
Chromium is pretty nice, but not CrossOver Chromium.
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George said 10:12PM on 9-16-2008
CrossOver is a fine effort. Definitely not perfect or ready for prime time, but it's getting closer. I would like to see Apple put some backing behind it and make it work seamlessly in OS X. That would completely kill the need to purchase Windows in any form. Wouldn't that be nice.
Compared to Windows Virtual Machines like Parallels and VMWare Fusion, CrossOver has a very very small foot print. 1+ gigs compared to 20+ gigs.
It isn't near perfect but I'm voting for it to improve with age.
Chromium worked better for me than Explorer did in CrossOver.
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Heebie said 2:48AM on 9-17-2008
You really think that there's an apostrophe in "allows"? Please can we have some real English speakers on TUAW?
And, yes, Chrome *will* come to the Mac, but just don't hold your breath. Just like Photosynth will eventually.
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smeidu said 8:20AM on 9-17-2008
fyi:
http://www.smeidu.com/2008/09/04/google-chrome-for-osx-mockup-design/
mockup Design für google chrome on osX
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colouroflight said 10:05AM on 9-17-2008
We already have a great, fast WebKit-based browser. Doesn't the Crossover team have more important apps to work on getting to run than this pile of junk?
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Greg Terry said 1:03AM on 9-20-2008
Save your money and run Virtual Box - it's back by Sun.
Works great and is FREE!
http://virtualbox.org/
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