Chrome For Mac – Will It Be Faster Than Safari 4?

June 2nd, 2009

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We all know that Chrome on the Windows platform is a bit faster than greased lightning, and that when you stack it up against the ponderous FireFox or Internet Explorer, it seems positively unfair. But what about on Macs? I only bounce over to that side of the pond once a week or so, and have never been unhappy with the Mac version of FF, or the native Safari 4. However, TweetCrunch is now reporting that Chrome For Mac is coming right along.

Here is a thought: who cares? Safari and Chrome are both WebKit based, a bit like two different cars built on the same foundation. Why the need? For once, let us turn to the TechCrunch comment section:

Person A: I really don’t see the need for Chrome on the Mac, Safari 4 is ridiculously fast (and based on the same rendering engine), and if you want more extensibility just use Firefox?

Person B: If you ignore Chrome’s single greatest feature – sandboxed, multi-core friendly tabs that can’t crash the whole browser – your post is accurate. (link)

Now, the first poster I am sure felt that he was nice and tricky, noting the WebKit heritage of both browsers. The second post has the real point: one of the best bits of Chrome, aside from speed, is that each tab has its own process. That way your “rich media” does not crash your big presentation. Less data loss and higher speeds. Safari be damned. You can help out here to get Chrome out for the Mac, before Jobs decides that you do not actually need it.

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