Google Chrome is Now More Power Efficient on Apple Silicon Macs
- Laurent Giret
- Mar 01, 2023
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Google announced yesterday that its Chrome browser should now be more power efficient on Macs (via The Verge). A new update for Chrome 110 should make the web browser sip less battery on Apple Silicon Macs as well as older models with Intel CPUs.
In Google’s tests, the owner of a MacBook Pro 13” with an M2 chip running macOS Ventura can now use Chrome to watch YouTube videos for up to 18 hours and browse the web for up to 17 hours. Google didn’t provide data about battery consumption before this update was released.
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According to Google, it has optimized memory compression, JavaScript timers, and made other improvements to prevent Chrome from using an excessive amount of battery on Macs. These power efficiency improvements follow the rollout of the memory and energy-saver modes in Chrome 110 last week.
Speaking with The Verge, François Doray from the Google Chrome team said that these improvements to preserve battery life are also coming to the Windows, Linux, and Android versions of Google Chrome. However, there’s no ETA yet on when these optimizations will start rolling out on other platforms
Even though Google Chrome remains the most popular web browser by a pretty wide margin, there are several faster and leaner alternatives on the market. Microsoft Edge is easy to recommend if you already have a foot in the Microsoft ecosystem, though other Chromium-based alternatives such as Brave are also gaining momentum.