Google issues test Chrome builds for Mac and Linux

Chrome support for Mac and Linux is in the pipeline

Google has made available test versions of its Chrome browser for Mac OS X and Linux, but warned the builds are aimed at developers and not stable enough for everyday use.

The release versions were revealed on Google's Chromium blog, which urged users not to download them, "unless, of course, you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software".

Features not yet supported at this stage of development include Chrome's privacy settings, the ability to set a default search provider, or the ability to view Flash video content.

The Mac version of the browser requires an Intel-based system and OS X 10.5.6 or later, while the Linux version is designed for Ubuntu 8.04 or Debian version 5 and above, but manually unpacking the .deb files may work on other distributions, according to Google.

The company has three release channels for Chrome: stable, beta, and a developer preview channel. The versions for Mac and Linux are still at the latter stage.

Google stated in its blog that it would "get back to trying to get Google Chrome on these platforms stable enough for a beta release as soon as possible" , but gave no indication of when this might happen or when stable versions are likely to be available.

Last month, the company issued Chrome 2 for Windows as a stable release.