Apple and All Things Mac|Geneseo CUSD Network|New Technology|Open Source

The newest Mac OS it can run is 10.7.5. It's now running 10.6.8.and the browsers for OS 10.8 (two OS versions newer than 10.6.8) are pretty much out-dated. This doesn't mean this computer doesn't have any life left in it. If you’re using OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, you can run the latest version of Chrome, which is 43.0.2357.81 at the moment. If you’re still using Leopard, version 21.0.1180.90 is the most recent available. It’s three years old at present and a memory hog, just like every version of Chrome. Browser For Mac 10.6.8 Moving on is the HTML5 test, this measures how each browser supports the various features of the internet. Chrome and Opera pull this one out which isn’t a huge surprise since Opera is based on Chromium where both Edge and Safari fall quite a bit behind. But, I cannot understand why Firefox is a problem, I find it the best as far as my 10.6.8 is concerned, even though I am also a user of Safari. Try to update your 10.6.8 using the 10.6.8 combo update and then try again to download Firefox.

I placed the Release build in a DMG file to give it an easy installer. (Can Click Image to Download Installer as well).

So Chromium is the best browser, in my opinion. ¬¨‚Ä†Let me just say I have been a major fan of Mozilla/Firefox for over a decade and it has only been really the last 12-15 months that I have fully come to appreciate how fast and far the Chormium project has evolved. ¬¨‚Ä†Mozilla/Firefox’s rapid release schedule has unfortunately turned out to be quite annoying and almost¬¨‚Ä†disastrous¬¨‚Ä†with new browsers being released every six weeks or so. ¬¨‚Ä†Usually this pace of release is a good thing but in Mozilla’s case it has been frustrating as some versions work well, others have no really new features (Firefox 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10? ¬¨‚Ä†all seemed the same, still buggy).

Chrome is google’s slightly modified release verision of the open source project Chromium (financed by Google). ¬¨‚Ä†The difference is minimal but for a school district there are a couple of slight advantages. ¬¨‚Ä†Chromium does not track as many user metrics, not does it seem to open quite the same number of UDP connections as Chrome. ¬¨‚Ä† In a filtered setting its nice to have a customized browser, that doesn’t track (as many) user metrics as this information is really just wasted traffic. ¬¨‚Ä†Chrome also adds in a PDF plugin as well as built in flash plugin where as Chromium leaves these out, ¬¨‚Ä†again this is okay and actually preferred since we already have flash and a PDF view installed on all Macs. ¬¨‚Ä†I will include this chromium build and future builds on our Lab images at the HS and MS, also changed the logo a bit to give it a Geneseo feel.

Best Browser For Mac Os X 10.6.8

I compiled Chromium from source on an MacBook Air i5. ¬¨‚Ä†I compiled on 10.7 Lion but used set the build option to 10.6 for better¬¨‚Ä†compatibility. ¬¨‚Ä†To be able to compile on OS X Lion works but there are a few more steps then other Mac platforms. ¬¨‚Ä†I compiled the project in terminal with the following commands.

First get the source using SVN and then sync with gclient. ¬¨‚Ä†The source code is currently quite large and the download will be between 1.2 and 1.6 gigs.

Most of the directions of chromium’s site will work but I have added below the two that were necessary to get to build on OS X Lion. ¬¨‚Ä†I would also make sure you have XCode installed prior to compiling.

Best Browser For Mac 10.6.8

Use the following command to set the build correctly for mac. I was only able to build setting Mac_sdk to 10.6.

Best Browser For 10.6 8

GYP_GENERATORS=make GYP_DEFINES=mac_sdk=10.6 ./build/gyp_chromium

To finally initiate and build from the source I set the BUILDTYPE to release, and used the -j4 flag to use 3 cores (can use -j5 if you want to use all 4 cores of a i5 to speed up compiling time.)

make BUILDTYPE=Release chrome -j4

Compiling took well over one hour.

Best Browser For Os 10.6.8

(Successful Build)

Best Browser For 10.6.8

I really hate having to buy new macs every few years. Between the machines and the software it is a big investment and a whole lot of time setting things up and learning how to use it.
I usually keep my macs as long as I can. My only problem now is the browsers. Firefox, Chrome and Safari don't seems to want to support 10.5.8. At least FF and Safari run but there are some sites I visit that don't work well with those old versions and the new versions can't be installed on 10.5.8.
Any suggestions on a browser that will let my macs live a little longer?

Best Browser 10.6.8