Google Chrome

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Google Chrome
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Free
Language:
English
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OS:
Mac OS X
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Softonic review

Nick Mead

“Google's browser for Mac”

by Nick Mead about Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a Mac web browser that lets you surf the web in comfort at high speeds.

The first thing we noticed about Google Chrome is that it's unbelievably lightweight. While Firefox was consuming anything from an average of 20-30% of a Mac's CPU, Chrome barely registered on the scale, occasionally touching 1%. For anyone plagued with Firefox memory leaks and crashes, this alone is surely going to be a compelling reason to give Chrome a go.

As you'd expect, Google Chrome also features tabbed browsing, which visually, is more attractive than Firefox which tends to cram them together somewhat. Extensions and bookmarking (including syncing across machines) are included, as is Adobe Flash.

Chrome for Mac only works on Intel Macs and you might find that some add-ons that you used with previous browsers aren't available for it yet. This is rapidly changing however and most popular add-ons are now available on Chrome.

Perhaps most importantly, Google Chrome is extremely quick. Surfing the Softonic site, page-loads took less then a second and all images were loaded very quickly. YouTube in particular loaded with lightening speed.

Overall, the handling of sites using JavaScript in particular is mightily impressive and this has been made even better with the implementation of a V8 Crankshaft. Its also nice to know that with Google Chrome, even if there is a problem with one of your tabs, that it won't crash the whole browser - just the tab itself. However, sandboxing of Flash still isn't available in the Mac version, even though it is on Windows.

The final version ensures that you'll be able to synchronize not only bookmarks across multiple computers, but also browser preferences - including themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages, and even page zoom settings. Meanwhile, you can also enable each extension to work in incognito mode through the extensions manager.

With thousands of extensions, super fast browsing and all the intelligence and slickness you expect from a Google product, Chrome delivers an excellent browsing experience.

Pros
  • Very lightweight - no Firefox memory leaks
  • Page loads are very quick
  • Elegant and streamlined interface
  • Handles JavaScript very well
  • Loads of extensions
  • Instant Pages for super fast browsing
Cons
  • Intel Macs only
  • No support for some plugins
  • Not as many extensions as Firefox
  • Flash not included by default still
  • No sandboxing of Flash on Mac version
Free Download Google Chrome 18.0.1025.163

Google Chrome is virus free

We have analyzed the latest version of Google Chrome with 30 antivirus engines and it is virus free. See analysis results.

TESTED VIRUS FREE - Softonic GUARANTEED

Google Chrome (2) User reviews

  • Good
  • 7/10
  • eeshita201125 eeshita201125
    User reviews
    2

    when i downloaded this it wasn't working. when i clicked the icon it said that it was archiving and then another icon appeared. when i clicked that one it said that it was unarchiving. so i don't... More

    • Review of Google Chrome - 20 Jul 2011
      This review is liked by 8 of 15
  • armwood armwood
    User reviews
    1
    • Good
    • 1/10
    Google Chrome

    There is a 1Password beta extension that works well with Chrome 5 for Mac, You can download it here:

    http://blog.agile.ws/post/589789720/chrome-extension-updated-to-0-6-2

    I found the link... More

    • Review of Google Chrome - 29 May 2010
      This review is liked by 8 of 10
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