Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2008/12/10/google_chrome_out_of_beta/

Google gives Chrome spit 'n' polish treatment, says report

Luring OEMs by removing beta tag?

By Kelly Fiveash

Posted in Software, 10th December 2008 13:31 GMT

Hold on to your hats, Google Chrome is coming out of beta.

The internet giant’s vice president Marissa Mayer told Michael Arrington at LeWeb 08 that Google’s open source Windows-friendly browser, which debuted about three months ago, will be given the full release treatment soon.

According to the interview, Google is responding to demand from eager beaver customers including OEMs.

However, Google – which is famed for keeping its swath of online products in beta for a very, very long time – isn’t saying when Chrome will be granted the beefed up, full release status.

We have put that question to the company, but it hasn’t immediately responded at time of writing.

Sadly, for all you fan boys and gals out there, a Mac version of Chrome remains missing in action.

Meanwhile, aspects of the browser remain a work-in-progress.

Google on Monday announced an early developer release of Native Client, that consists of a runtime, a browser plugin, and a set of GCC-based compilation tools.

In a nutshell, Native Client is intended to run native code from web-based applications on x86 Windows, Mac, and Linux. But Google said it needs the developer community to iron out a few security and usability wrinkles first. ®