Google Earth browser plug-in arrives for Mac

Google Earth now works as a Safari or Firefox plug-in on Mac OS X.

(Credit: Google)

Google has released a Mac OS X version of a plug-in that lets people use its Google Earth software as a browser plug-in.

The move means a smaller but significant crowd can rely on Web pages that employ the sophisticated aerial viewing options the software provides. But Mac fans should brace themselves for a 47MB download from the Google Earth API page.

The size is large because Google provided a universal binary file that runs on both PowerPC-based and Intel-based Macs, a Google representative said in a forum posting about the availability of the Mac version. "There are also some other space-saving changes that we may look into later on," he said, adding that Google plans to mention the software in a forthcoming blog post.

Digital Earth Blog, which surfaced the forum post Wednesday, points to a few sites such as EarthSwoop and Mini Flight Sim where people can try the plug-in.

In other Mac news, Jason Toff, an associate product marketing manager for the Google Mac Team, announced Wednesday on the Google Mac blog that the Mac-specific Google page is no longer just available in English. The site now works in German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Dutch, and Italian.

Update 9:45 a.m. PST December 4: Google's blog post about the plug-in is now live.

In it, Google also announced a new Google Earth plug-in game, Puzzler, and some bug fixes in the Windows version of the Google Earth plug-in.

(Via Google Earth Blog.)

[badgerberling]

The article would read better if near the end it said "no longer limited to English" instead of "no longer just available in English", the eye skips the "just" way to easily requiring repeat reading. But this Mac user will try the OS X version of the Google Earth and see what all the hoopla is about.

[iertry]

Personally I have never seen google earth embedded in a web page. Seen google maps plenty of times but never seen google earth.

[Shankland]

Nor have I, which is one reason I included links to a couple sites that do. However, I see it as potentially useful if processing power, network capacity, and other constraints are eased. Right now it's definitely a novelty rather than a must-have. I also would like better integration between Google Earth and Google Maps; perhaps there's some kind of graceful hand-off that would let people switch between the two views.

[lokanadam]

why isn't google search engine open source ? ? ?

[canberra_photographer]

huh, because they make money by having a very powerful and exclusive search algorithm.