Google Chrome to stop being a huge battery hog on Macs | Mashable

Google Chrome to stop being a huge battery hog on Macs | Mashable: Google Chrome to stop being such a battery hog on Macs 17 hours of browsing on a new, 13-inch MacBook Pro. By Stan Schroeder  on February 28, 2023 Share on Facebook (opens in a new window) Share on Twitter (opens in a new window) Share on Flipboard (opens in a new window) With these optimizations, Chrome users will be able to watch YouTube for 17 hours on one charge using the new 13-inch MacBook Pro. Credit: Google > Tech > Apps and Software It's no secret that Google's web browser, Chrome, can be a huge resource and battery hog. Depending on the version and the operating system, it sometimes got so bad it inspired a ton of memes(Opens in a new tab) about Chrome slowing down your computer more than playing games does. Google is working on it, though. On Tuesday, the company announced it has made a number of optimizations to Chrome that should result in Chrome draining a lot less battery on Mac computers. SEE ALSO: 'Do's and don'ts' for testing Bard: Google asks its employees for help The company says that a 13-inch, M2 Apple MacBook Pro running this latest version of Chrome should last for 17 hours of browsing, and 18 hours of watching YouTube. Google also made improvements to Chrome's Energy Saver mode, which should give you an additional 30 minutes of browsing on battery (Energy Saver starts by itself when your laptop's battery falls to 20 percent, appearing as a leaf icon next to the address bar). Short-lived iframes will not be such a power hog for Chrome anymore. Credit: Google Google says older Macs should see performance improvements as well, though the company didn't share any numbers. These improvements are a result of several changes Google has made under Chrome's hood. These include fine-tuning "the garbage collection and memory compression heuristics for recently created iframes," tweaking Javascript timers as to reduced CPU usage, optimizing access patterns for "data structures in which there were frequent accesses with the same key," and avoiding unnecessary redraws of the items rendered within Chrome windows, and the Chrome UI itself. Featured Video For You 0 seconds of 1 secondVolume 0% 00:14 15:05   Google's Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro Reviewed It's worth noting that Google implemented optimizations to reduce battery drain and improve performance in Chrome on numerous earlier occasions, including in 2017, 2020, and 2022 (when it launched the Energy Saver feature). The latest batch of changes are notable as they only affect Mac computers. These changes have launched in Chrome versions 109 and 110, but Google told Mashable they were only rolled out to a tiny fraction of users. All Chrome users should see these improvements by the end of this week.