I've lost a lot of respect for Google

Google widely advertises that it's completely on Linux. The world's most powerful search engine (with over 60% market share, closest second being Yahoo with 16%) is hosted on Linux servers. I respect Google for what it's become. Google provided us with GMail, Maps, Calendar, Reader and some very useful web-applications over the past few years and has really emerged from being far more than just a search engine. Google's web-apps go unparalleled at times. But, I've lost a lot of respect for Google ever since Chrome has been released. When I first saw the video of Google Chrome, I was impressed. And I specifically remember the speaker introducing Chrome saying that the developers were working hard at releasing Mac and Linux versions as soon as they can. As soon as they can would mean a couple of weeks.

It's been a few months since Chrome has been released and multiple updates for Chrome on Windows have been released yet there's no sign of Chrome on Linux anywhere - not even a hint of it. It's not like I'm a fan of Chrome. That browser cannot be half of what Firefox is. But sometimes, you want an alternative and although there are many alternatives on Linux like Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Midori and so on, I can't help but think why Google is unable to produce some of its applications for Linux or Mac.

Picasa still runs through Wine. I can't believe that a company as big as Google cannot port a browser onto 2 other platforms whereas Mozilla is able to port all their applications to the 3 major platforms. Thunderbird, Prism, Firefox, Seamonkey, Sunbird, and many others are available on the same day for all platforms. Google, if you ever get this, buck up. If a company as big as you and as big as you are on Linux can't produce your own applications for Linux, it's sad.