Chrome for Mac, Linux is out, but Google warns of its dangers

Security holes in nascent Google Chrome patched

Google has released versions of its Chrome browser for the Mac OS X and Linux but is warning users not to download either of them.

The reason? Mike Smith and Karen Grunberg, product managers for the web browser, said in a Chromium Blog post Thursday that only developers should download the software, or people who “take pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software.”

Judging from the list of outstanding issues, the advice seems well-founded.

Smith and Grunberg noted that the versions were so incomplete that “you won't yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print.”

Chrome for the Windows platform has been out since September, and has been updated a number of times since then, with minor revisions through an automatic mechanism that patches the browser every time it runs, if needed.

The new versions may take time to get to general public release, since Google considers the Mac and Linux versions as "pre-alpha."

Smith and Grunberg wrote: “We'll get back to trying to get Google Chrome on these platforms stable enough for a beta release as soon as possible!”