Does Google Chrome use a lot of battery?

A

andyACEcandy

macrumors 6502a

Original poster

Feb 11, 2008

863

14

• May 18, 2010

• #1

I installed Chrome and my battery life with minimal usage went from 6ish hours to 3...

I closed out and opened firefox, and it went back to the 6ish.

I calibrated my battery and retried again.... Chrome still decreased battery life a lot.

Weird? Anyway, I have since uninstalled Chrome.... wondering if anyone else noticed this?

 

LifeIsLaughter

macrumors newbie

May 2, 2010

7

0

• May 19, 2010

• #2

That's strange.
Chrome so far has proven to be very fast and efficient for me. What plug-ins do you have installed? There is no reason that I know of that would explain why Firefox would be more power efficient.

 

H

hackeron

macrumors newbie

Nov 26, 2008

11

0

• May 20, 2010

• #3

Google chrome causes my macbook pro to turn on the nvidia GPU which drains the battery significantly faster than safari and firefox - so I tend to turn off chrome whenever I'm on battery

 

Patrick J

macrumors 65816

Mar 12, 2009

1,434

7

Oporto, Portugal

• May 21, 2010

• #4

Might have something to do with the rendering engine.

 

Patrick J

macrumors 65816

Mar 12, 2009

1,434

7

Oporto, Portugal

• Jul 10, 2010

• #5

I would like to bump this.

My 13" '09 MBP, with full charge, gets around 3hours 40mins when surfing the web with Chrome, at a little over medium brightness.

Safari, with the same conditions, lasts for 4 hours 50 minutes.

Any solutions, explanations, or tips?

 

Cabbit

macrumors 68020

Jan 30, 2006

2,128

1

Scotland

• Jul 10, 2010

• #6

Try disabling its built in Flash plugin and see how that effects battery life.

 

Patrick J

macrumors 65816

Mar 12, 2009

1,434

7

Oporto, Portugal

• Jul 10, 2010

• #7

How would I do that?

 

celticpride678

Guest

Feb 15, 2009

5,486

2

Boston, MA

• Jul 10, 2010

• #8

Patrick J said:

How would I do that?

Click to expand...

Visit chrome://plugins/ and disable "Shockwave Flash"

 

Patrick J

macrumors 65816

Mar 12, 2009

1,434

7

Oporto, Portugal

• Jul 11, 2010

• #9

celticpride678 said:

Visit chrome://plugins/ and disable "Shockwave Flash"

Click to expand...

Thankyou! I will try that and report back with results.

 

ARF900

macrumors 65816

Oct 30, 2009

1,119

0

• Jul 11, 2010

• #10

I dont have chrome on my mac anymore, but I really didn't have as good experience with chrome on the mac as I have on windows, its very buggy, I just couldn't stand the Expose glitch.

 

Patrick J

macrumors 65816

Mar 12, 2009

1,434

7

Oporto, Portugal

• Jul 11, 2010

• #11

ARF900 said:

I dont have chrome on my mac anymore, but I really didn't have as good experience with chrome on the mac as I have on windows, its very buggy, I just couldn't stand the Expose glitch.

Click to expand...

Luckily I have never experienced that.

 

Patrick J

macrumors 65816

Mar 12, 2009

1,434

7

Oporto, Portugal

• Jul 12, 2010

• #12

I have disabled the flash plugin, however the battery life didn't get that much better. Ah well :/

 

A

andyACEcandy

macrumors 6502a

Original poster

Feb 11, 2008

863

14

• Dec 19, 2010

• #13

Wondering if I should reinstall...

I like Firefox, but I do think Chrome is a bit faster and lighter

 

D

dobirip

macrumors newbie

Dec 30, 2011

3

0

• Dec 31, 2011

• #14

macbook pro 13inch late 2011

Yep, i just bought this mac and was mad about apple the battery runs out much faster then expected, never experienced any similar battery drain with my older 15inch macbook pro (didn't have chrome then). with chrome battery is around 3:30 hours, with safari 7:30. I guess thats due to my google sync etc and offline gmail but not worth it. recommendation don't use chrome at all on MacBooks (still use on iMac and love it).