“A member of the Apple Support forums posted yesterday that an employee of the company had told him that ‘the specific combination’ of Google’s Chrome browser, its built-in version of Flash and the Intel HD 4000 chip found in the latest MacBook Airs was causing a problem that Apple was working to fix, with some owners reporting frequent crashes and even kernel panics as a result of the issue,” MacNN reports.
“Later Thursday, Google issued a statement admitting responsibility for the problem, blaming the issue on a ‘graphics resource leak’ in the Chrome brower, and would issue an automatic update temporarily disabling some GPU acceleration features in Chrome,” MacNN reports. “Google said its engineers would ‘find and fix’ the cause, but that the problem was also being reported to Apple since ‘it should not be possible for an application to trigger such behavior.'”
More info and links in the full article here.
It’s very nice of Google to take the blame for an Adobe problem. Can we just stop with Flash already?
f Google.
Chrome sux.
Would this happen in Mountain Lion’s upcoming sandbox scheme for apps?
no application should be above to “crash” Mac OS – the OS itself – that is a classic Microsoft blue screen scenario
so, yes, this is partly Apple’s fault too – big time
sorry but it is true
Always use Safari, people.
It’s the best browser for the Mac.
Never got the Google Chrome crowd. Feels like visiting a desert in not a good way. Safari does everything I need. People just think they are being “hip” to go someplace else just for the exercise, like they are improving their lot. That way lies madness often. And Flash is a certifiable POS and the quicker it dies the better. The Flashers out there are in utter denial.
While you may be perfectly correct that Flash should be put out in a desert somewhere with a stake through its miserable little heart, until websites stop using Flash for stupid reasons, like requiring it to be able to view the seating in a concert venue to choose your seat, (Royal Festival Hall, London), or to select a photo in order to register for ticket allocation, (Glastonbury Festival, Somerset, the biggest music festival in the world), then it will be necessary to have a browser with Flash included. Chrome means I don’t have to download Flash and the many, many upgrades it requires. Sadly, Chrome for iOS can’t run Flash.
At the moment, you are correct. I have, though, been using and will recommend using Chromium instead of Chrome. It’s the same browser with the included Flash plug-in but apparently without the intrusive elements of Chrome.
Now, if only I could get MLB.com to use ALL HTML 5 content instead of requiring Flash for Gameday and Gameday Audio…
I’ll switch to Safari when Safari offers the cookie handling that Firefox does. I prefer to control which web sites leave cookies behind, and Safari’s options (Allow any, block all, or block 3rd party/ad) are just not fine grained enough.
Safari offers cookie handling in the “Preferences” menu.
Ad blocking, tracking and such are handled with Extensions downloaded from Apple’s website.
What idiot uses the Chrome browser on a Mac. He deserves all the crashes and more.
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro and also a newer MacBook Air and I have been having freezes while using Chrome for several months. I was pretty sure Chrome was the culprit. My freezes were on the Pro not the Air. So Google it is affecting more than just the Air.
It’s not just the Air. It took me a minute to figure out but Chrome consistently crashed my Mac mini.
Safari’s excellent, but eats up ram the way Firefox does. Was less of an issue before Lion. Not impressed with Safari cookie management, either.
Camino is my favorite browser, small and fast.
Rarely use Chrome.
Major *DING* factor. But theoretically Firefox has addressed and solved its worst RAM devouring problems with the last two revisions. I wish Safari would do the same!
I wrote up an article covering cookie management earlier this week:
http://mac-security.blogspot.com/2012/06/fight-for-internet-user-privacy.html
I bought the Cookie app and like it. The article covers some tips for setting up the app. There is also a free but hobbled Safari extension version called ‘Safari Cookies’.
I’ve been trying Chromium but have zero interest in Chrome. I also own and like iCab, alive and well on Mac and iOS.
it should not be possible for an application to trigger such behavior.
I’m afraid so! IOW, no matter what crapcode Google barfed into Chrome, Apple has its own bug to plug. I suspect this is specific to Mac OS X’s handling of GPU memory. I’d rather this was plugged sooner than later.
google’s code is 90% stolen. It’s mostly the remaining ten percent that’s bad.
Is that like “He’s the kind of lawyer that gives the other 95% a bad name”?