Chrome users on the Mac have long complained about the browser’s battery-hogging impact on their devices. Apple’s own Safari browser fares much better in terms of battery efficiency.
Chrome improvements for Mac
Chrome UI’s senior software engineer Peter Kasting opened up about his project and the effort to make the browser more Mac friendly. Some of the tasks taken to improve Google’s internet browser include “lowering the priority of background tab rendering”. They also cut the total number of times the browser wakes up from low-power mode. Although this feature simplifies things with faster page rendering, it uses more power from the CPU. Kasting added:
“The Chrome team has no intention of sitting idly by (pun intended) when our users are suffering. You should expect us to continually improve in this area.”
Kasting says Chrome’s power consumption now matches that in Safari. He added that Mac users should expect to see significant improvements. Unfortunately, not everyone is pleased with Kasting’s Chrome improvements. A few people left negative comments in the comment section of Kasting’s post. Many of the negative comments were in regards to Chrome’s poor memory.
Chrome’s memory usage problem
Chrome has poor memory usage that derives the fact it runs each tab in a separate process. Rival browser Mozilla Firefox runs them in a collective process instead. Kasting did note that the team is making changes in the browser to improve memory usage.
Kasting mentioned several examples demonstrating how the engineers are working on improving the entire Chrome experience for users.
Earlier this month, Google officially announced it turned on a feature within the browser beta feature includes preserving notebook battery power by freezing the content rendered by Adobe Flash Power. The new feature will be automatically enabled in the next few weeks.
Chrome is one of the most popular internet browsers for both Windows and Mac users. IT experts note it is critical for Google to make the necessary improvements to the browser to keep users happy.
