Google Chrome - a "necessary" evil

[David30]

Please provide the latest releases of Google Chrome (not Chromium).

Due to Adobe's bad attitude, the newest builds of Flash for Linux/BSD are built into Google Chrome.

Sadly, because so many websites in the real world still rely on Flash, it is a necessary evil. Having the newest Flash releases noticeably improves its performance, as well as greatly improving on its lacklustre security!

Also, if you have Nvidia graphics (which I do), Flash videos will have a blue tint as of build 11.2.202.228 with hardware acceleration enabled. This does not happen in Google Chrome, since Flash builds are much higher than 11.2.x.x - and hardware acceleration greatly improves video performance, especially on Nvidia graphics.

Apologies for a long-winded message. I needed to explain the Flash mess and how it affects everyday users' in the real world, and why using Google Chrome really does help.

[Beanpole]

We would love to provide a PBI for Google Chrome, but unfortunately it is a closed-source binary, which means that Google needs to provide the FreeBSD version of the binary before we can package it in a PBI. Chromium is the open source version, so we could build that on FreeBSD ourselves without too much trouble.
We also make sure that our Chromium PBI includes the "CODECS" build option for the port, which apparently adds in a number of the "chrome" proprietary codecs into chromium as well, but this might just be for reading ffmpeg files and such.

So to make a long story short... you need to first contact Google and see if they can release a FreeBSD version of Chrome, then the FreeBSD ports team can create a port for it (to setup any build/wrapper scripts, dependencies, etc...), and finally we can package it as a PBI.

Alternatively, you might be able to download/run the Linux version of the Chrome binary through the Linux compatibility layer. I am not sure how well it will work, but it might be worth trying.

[David30]

Alternatively, you might be able to download/run the Linux version of the Chrome binary through the Linux compatibility layer. I am not sure how well it will work, but it might be worth trying.

Thanks for the info.

I can't get the Chrome download for Linux. If I could obtain it, would it run using the Linux compatibility layer or do I need to do something else after downloading it?

[Beanpole]

I think I found something here[1]. It looks like there are some basic instructions on how to download/install Chrome for Linux, so you might just be able to follow those instructions to get it working.

[1] http://support.google.com/chrome/bin...n&answer=95346

[David30]

How did you go about asking Google to allow packaging Google Earth?:

http://forums.pcbsd.org/showthread.php?t=17740

Can you do the same for Google Chrome?

[Beanpole]

The Google earth binary that is retrieved in the port is the Linux version of the program binary. I am not sure how they found the download location and such, but you might be able to ask the FreeBSD ports mailing list (or maybe the google-earth port maintainer) if they could do the same for Chrome.

I tried a couple variations on the google-earth download path to try and find the Chrome download files, but I was unsuccessful. So maybe someone with more experience than myself in porting software to FreeBSD will be able to help you out more.

[David30]

How does anyone go about asking Google for a FreeBSD version of Chrome? It would definitely solve the Flash Player headaches forever.

[Beanpole]

I have not sure. I would guess that there is probably some kind of "request" board or form that you can fill out, but finding out where it is will probably be the most difficult thing about the process. If something like that does not exist, most companies will have either an email address or some kind of online method of communicating with their customers (like a forum), so asking around there might be the way to go as well.

[David30]

I have just posted my question in the Google Chrome forum.

[thnewguy]

The weird thing is there doesn't even appear to be a public bug tracker for Chrome. There is one for Chromium, its open source base, but not for the bnary-only version Google builds.