If you’re one of those who use Google Chrome on their Macs, you know how incredibly power-hungry it can be. I mean, Chrome promises a great browsing experience, but it eats through your battery life like one of those guests at a great Indian wedding. But the good news is that it looks like Google will finally be doing something about it.
A recent report from The Wall Street Journal stated that Google is finally putting their backs into improving the Chrome browser’s life-long issue with draining MacBook’s battery life. One big problem with Chrome is that inactive tabs pull too much power in the background, so Google is currently working to fix that problem. The company has reportedly been performing early tests on MacBooks and found that it has “dramatic impact on battery and performance.”
In addition to that, Google set out plans in May to improve Chrome’s impact on battery life by blocking resource-heavy ads. Not only that, but the company also says that the improvements will make parts of the software that you actually interact with run even faster.
However, battery life is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg with Chrome. As you may know, the company has faced repeated criticisms in the past because of its poor use of RAM and privacy concerns. Addressing these issues, Max Christoff, Director of Chrome Browser Engineering, said that the work the company is doing right now is part of an ‘ongoing investment’ to improve the overall performance of the browser.
While these changes aren’t live yet, Google reportedly plans on updating Chrome with the improvements in a stable release towards the end of August. So you can look forward to enjoying a longer MacBook battery life.
Meanwhile, Apple is starting to really put pressure on Chrome. In addition to the new privacy features for Safari that will be released this fall, the company is taking a direct shot at one of the primary use cases for Chrome; Safari will soon make it easy for developers to port their browser extensions over.
So it looks like Google needs to step its game up (and soon) if it still wants to remain in the running against Safari.