Chromium Browser for Mac and Linux Not a Threat to Safari

Thanks to CodeWeavers, now Mac and Linux users can also enjoy Chrome. Google Chrome is built with open source code from Chromium and until now, it was available only for Windows users. CrossOver Chromium is offered by CodeWeavers as a proof-of-concept so that Mac and Linux users can try first-hand the power and flexibility of the new open source browser.

Google has announced plans to support native Mac and Linux versions of Chromium, but they have yet to be released. CrossOver Chromium, however, runs the Windows version of Chromium natively on both Mac and Linux.

One of the difference between the open source Chromium and Google Chrome is that  Chromium itself doesn’t have an autoupdater. Although Chromium is not a threat to Safari browser,  both Mac and Linux users should under no circumstances run CrossOver Chromium as their main browser - at least not for now. Security-wise, there is no comparison between the two browsers. In Chrome, you can’t even turn JavaScript off, let alone enjoy peace of mind offered by Safari. No need to remind users that this is just a proof of concept showcasing what a proprietary version of Wine, called CrossOver, can do. CodeWeavers’ Wine is a widely popular compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Mac OS X and Linux. Google is known for paying CodeWeavers to improve support for Adobe Photoshop and add functionality to Wine.

CrossOver Chromium is available as a native Mac .dmg file, or as Linux packages. Mac users can simply drag the .dmg file into their Applications folder. Linux users should use the appropriate tools for their respective Linux distributions to unpack the installer package. You can download CrossOver Chromium for Apple Mac OS X (10.4 or higher with an Intel CPU) or Linux (Ubuntu and Debian, Red Hat, Mandriva, Suse, and all other Linux distros) here.