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Macs Get Google Earth Browser Plug-In

If you're a Mac user and feeling jealous of Windows machine users' ability to use Google Earth directly in their browser, be jealous no more. Google has created a browser plug-in that will let you surf the Earth from Safari 3.1 and Firefox 3.0.

Until today, Mac users have been forced to open the standalone Google Earth software to use it. The standalone software works great, but sometimes it would be nice to use Google Earth when in your browser.

Today, Google released the Google Earth Browser Plug-in for Mac OS X 10.4+ (PowerPC and Intel). The Mac plug-in is supported on Safari 3.1+ and Firefox 3.0+. The download link should now be available to all users from any Earth API-powered site.

Using Google Earth in the browser is limited a bit when compared with the full client. It offers the basic 3-D zooming about the globe and skips some of the more advanced features, such as 3-D terrain, public transit information, or the ability to geo-tag Flickr photos.

The software can be downloaded and installed here.

Google also has updated some features of the plug-in for Windows machines. The list of upgrades includes improved start-up time, KML/KMZ parsing and rendering speed has been improved, XML Namespaces are now supported during KML parsing, and several bug fixes.

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