Mabel R. Acton
While much of the Mac community uses Safari, Google is making a more compelling case for Chrome on the Mac with two new features that make it more efficient. Chrome has been a notorious memory and energy hog over the years, and Google is introducing memory and energy saver to help free up resources and keep your Mac running smoothly.
Energy Saver is a new mode that kicks in when a MacBook’s battery reaches 20 percent. When that happens, Chrome limits its background activity and the visual effects of animations and videos on a website. Memory Saver frees up the memory used by inactive tabs so “intensive applications, like editing family videos or playing games” can run smoothly. If you switch to a tab that was inactive, Chrome will automatically reload it.
Memory Saver or Energy Saver is enabled,
an icon indicator appears in the toolbar.
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Google has been working to make Chrome as efficient and speedy as Safari over the past several months. Earlier this year, Google Chrome boasted the highest Speedometer score ever on an Apple silicon Mac but was superseded by Safari a few months later.
Energy Saver and Memory Saver can both be turned on or off in Chrome’s settings. Both new features are gradually being rolled out to users in version 108, so it’s possible that you may not see the update immediately. To update Chrome, go to Chrome > Preferences > About Chrome, and if an update is available to you, it will load and the browser will need to restart. According to Google, the new features will be available globally in the coming weeks but you can force them in your browser now by going to chrome://flags/#high-efficiency-mode-available and Memory Saver at chrome://flags/#battery-saver-mode-available and selecting Enabled and then Relaunch. Then go to Preferences>Performance to enable the,.
