As some of you know, Google released a new browser recently, something called Chrome. The idea is/was to fix everything that is wrong with browsers and make the Web browsers a tool to run applications. As opposed to just viewing Web pages. I'm being a bit silly here, but Chrome is built to be more like an operating system than a plain old browser. There's more but it's all only for Windows users since a Linux version doesn't yet exist. Wait . . . What? Check out this screenshost (click it for a full screen view).

Does that browser look unusual?

If you run Windows as well as Linux, does it look familiar? Take a look at the drop down menu over on the far right if you need more of a hint. Yes, you are right. That's Google Chrome running on Linux, with a little help from the folk at CodeWeavers Inc. Renamed CrossOver Chromium, it borrows its name from the Google open source project behind Chrome itself. If you want to check out Chromium on Linux, head on over to yon friendly URL.

CodeWeavers is the company that produces the CrossOver suite, a package that allows you to run many popular Windows applications under Linux, without the need for a Windows license.

CodeWeavers makes packages available for DEB based distributions like Debian and Ubuntu as well as RPM based distributions like Mandriva, RedHat, and SUSE. An shell-based installer is also available to cover other distributions that might not fall into these two camps.

Download it, run it, then come back and discuss it here. Are you impressed with Chromium? Do you really think it has the power to change how we view/use Web browsers?