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Chrome has been doing well, gaining new users faster than any other browser

Google’s rising star Chrome is now officially out of beta on the Mac and Linux.

They’ve bundled a couple of new features in with the release, such as expanded syncing (it now syncs other personal settings in addition to bookmarks). Otherwise it’s the same polished browser that you’ve come to expect.

Ubuntu users who’ve already plugged into the Google repo can upgrade by hitting the following apturl: Chrome for Linux. Macbois and folks with a non-Debian flavoured Linux can download a standalone version (you’ll have to keep it up-to-date yourself if you do).

Google have launched the beta of their Chrome web browser for Mac and Linux.

Until now people using non-Windows machines have been forced to use the open source Chromium branch of the project, but now we’ve got an actual release. As a beta it may still be a little wobbly, but probably less so than using daily builds of Chromium.

The verdict so far: it’s nice. Desktop integration is good, and if anything it seems even faster than Chromium. Yikes!

Get it here:

Linux (both 32-bit and 64-bit RPM and DEB, nice one Google!)

There’s also a Linux repository available to get automatic updates. I’d highly recommend this, it’s important to get security updates for a browser.

OS X

The Twitgin, clearly a product of mad science.

I love Ubuntu Jaunty’s sexy new notification system. It’s elegant and unobtrusive. So much so that I have decided to let the distracting nonsense de jour, Twitter, loose on my desktop in the hope that the notification system keeps the information flow down to sensible levels. I really don’t want to run a whole separate app just for trialling Twitter, so it’d be nice to integrate it into Pidgin, since that’s exactly the kind of thing Pidgin is for.

Trouble is, Twitter have decreed: “Thou shalt not Twitter through IM!”

Wrong!

All you need is the microblog-purple plugin, and you’re laughing. The devs even have a nice PPA for Ubuntu users. Add that bad boy to your Software Sources and you’ll be kept up with the latest version.  There’s also Mac and Windows versions available on the project’s main page, but obviously those have to be updated manually. Sucks to be on Windows or Mac, huh?