Google is set to release a version of Chrome for the Apple OS by the end of the first half of this year.

Google's Brian Rakowski, Chrome's product manager said that a Mac and a Linux version will be ready in the first half of 2009. The Mac team is already able to render most Web pages pretty well. However he warned that the browser will be pretty basic without much in the way of features at the moment.

When it ships it will have enough features to go head to head with Apple's Safari 4. Both browsers claim that they will have advanced, speedy JavaScript engines for greater web app performance. 

Apple's current version of Safari has fallen so far behind the likes of Firefox it only shows web pages rendered in Ancient Sumerian.