Google debuts Chrome Canary for Mac

9to5 Staff | May 3 2011 - 3:08 am PT

If you’re a Chrome fan and love experimenting with early releases, Google has you covered with Chrome Canary for Mac. Arriving nine full months following the Windows release in August of last year, the new Cannary for Mac channel is live with pre-developer builds of Chrome. You know what that means: Highly unstable code, features that come and go, potential security-related problems and headache in general.

On the upside, however, you’ll get access to experimental new capabilities as they’re being developed, not all of which end up in the developer version or trickle down to beta or stable builds. If you’re willing to take the plunge and peer around technological corners for a sneak peek of what’s next in web browsing, why not download Google Chrome Cannary for Mac and take it for a spin.

This being a work-in-progress affair, you’re advised to not use this build for your daily workflow and instead install Chrome Canary alongside your existing version of Chrome. Your Canary data remains separate of beta, developer or stable builds you may have installed. You can set up the Sync feature in each version of Chrome that you use to continue using the same set of bookmarks, extensions, themes and other browser items and settings. According to a post on Google’s Chromium blog, Canary build is currently at version 13, as opposed to the Dev and Beta channels that are using version 12 or the current stable version of Chrome which is labelled 11.