CNET Editors' review
This is an unstable port of Google Chrome to the Mac via Wine. The folks at CodeWeavers have successfully built this version of Chromium, Google Chrome's codebase, for non-PowerPC Intel Macs. Unfortunately, it's incredibly buggy, and while it proves that Chrome can eventually run on the Mac, CrossOver Chromium is more about demonstrating the utility of Wine for running Windows apps on a non-Windows PC than creating an effective version of Chrome.
Based on Version 0.2.149.0 of Chromium, a big part of the problem is stability. Type in "nytimes" into the Omnibar and watch Chromium crash. There's a noticeable lag time, probably about half a second, when typing in text fields or even the Omnibar itself. There are also problems rendering images and text, with occasional reports of compressed pictures and misaligned type. The browser also sports the default Windows Vista theme, which is hilarious to see on a Mac, but less effective as an aesthetic. However, ripping a tab off into its own window did work without fail. Hands-down, that's one of the best things about Chrome.
The bottom line is that as an advertisement for Wine--showing how it can run Windows apps without a Windows installation underneath them--this is great. It's not aimed at the casual user, though, so download with caution and don't expect more out of this than it can currently give--which isn't much.
Publisher's Description
From CodeWeavers:
CrossOver Chromium is a Mac and Linux port of the open source Chromium Web browser that is the basis for Google Chrome. CrossOver Chromium was developed using CodeWeavers' Wine development expertise. CrossOver Chromium is a technology proof-of-concept to demonstrate Wines capabilities for rapidly migrating Windows software to new marketplaces, such as Linux and Mac. This is a beta release and should not be considered stable.
What's new in this version: First version on Download.com
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All versions:
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"It's gonna take while before it gets good."
Version: CrossOver Chromium 0.90
Pros
When you start it up it shows your most visited sites, google search from the address bar. Drag out the tab into a new window kinda like Safari
Cons
It's very slow. Lots of crashes. Take's lots of memory (132.6 MB) even more then double the MB my firefox 3.5b4 with all it's add-ons! (50.4 MB). Can't scroll left or right. Doesn't show up in Expose or spaces. Can't get flash to work on it.
Summary
Okay, i know this is the test version and they are working on it. But so far, it isn't great. Normally i'm not the one to write bad reviews but it isn't really good. It is EXTREMELY slow when visiting a page that's not on the cache it took me half a minute. (On the cache about 4-10 seconds) Bug on nytimes. And at random it crashes. I was really looking forward to this thing to. I don't even think that i would like it. Even with out all the crashes, slow loading time, and bugs. Sorry but i think i'm gonna stick with the firefox beta right now.
Forgot to mention, The scrolling is slow, it lags, and hard to pinpoint to a part of the page you want. and slow to start up (about 15 seconds).
Updated on May 19, 2009
