Google claims recent optimizations have made Chrome less energy efficient on MacBooks

Chrome on the M2 MacBook Pro now delivers 18 hours of YouTube browsing or 17 hours of web surfing, but Google didn’t provide battery life data prior to the update.

• What’s happening? Google’s Chrome browser should now let you extend your MacBook’s battery life while browsing the web or watching YouTube videos.
• Why care? Google says Chrome 110 lets you watch YouTube or surf the web for longer on a single charge, but it didn’t reveal statistics before the update.
• What to do? Update your copy of Chrome for Mac and then check out the new memory and power saving modes in performance settings.

Chrome should now drain your MacBook battery more slowly

The Chrome browser should no longer consume a lot of power on a MacBook. Google recently released Chrome 110 with several optimizations to improve performance and battery life on Apple Mac silicon and Intel-based models.

Google’s test using Chrome version 110.0.5481.100 on the latest MacBook Pro M2 running Apple’s latest macOS Ventura software should give Chrome 18 hours of YouTube video playback or 17 hours of web browsing, according to The Verge .

“Google didn’t provide device battery life data prior to this update, so we can’t make a direct comparison before and after, but The Verge was able to drain the same MacBook’s battery in 16 hours and 30 minutes across a variety of devices. everyday tasks,” the article says.

These benefits are made possible by various internal improvements and new features such as power saving and memory saving. With power saving mode turned on, Chrome could run 30 minutes longer than in the test mentioned above.

There are other tricks here as well.

“The Chrome team has made changes to the iframe (the element that loads the HTML page within the page),” notes TechCrunch. “It also stopped the browser from needlessly redrawing UI elements and tweaked its timers for more efficient CPU access.”These optimizations are coming to Chrome for Windows, Linux, and Android soon.

However, you may have to wait before taking advantage of Chrome’s latest battery-saving features – Google began rolling out Chrome 110 in early February. It will take several weeks for these optimizations and new power and memory saving modes to become available to all users.

Is my copy of Chrome up to date?

To see which version of Chrome you’re currently using on your Mac, select About Google Chrome from the Chrome menu. You’ll need Chrome version 110 or later to use the new memory and power saving features. Selecting “About Google Chrome”automatically downloads the latest stable version if Chrome is not up to date. Chrome has an automatic update mechanism so you can keep up to date with the latest developments.

How to use memory and save power

Google says installing Chrome 110 will automatically enable power saver and memory saver when Chrome is used on laptops. Visit the “Performance”section of your Chrome settings if you want to control both of these features.

Memory Saver frees memory from inactive tabs, and inactive tabs are automatically reloaded when you return to them. The power saving feature squeezes more power out of the battery by limiting background activity, video frame rate and smooth scrolling.

If you don’t see the “Performance”section in Chrome’s settings even if you’re using version 110 of the browser on a MacBook, read our guide explaining how to manage power saving and power saving in Chrome.

More information is available in Google Chrome Help.