Google Improving Chrome for OS X Performance to Better Rival Safari

[MacRumors]

Google senior software engineer Peter Kasting this week announced that his team has been working to address Chrome for OS X battery hog complaints by improving the performance of the browser on Mac, especially in areas where Safari appears to do better (via iPhoneHacks).

Chrome for OS X has received multiple under the hood improvements that should result in faster performance and longer battery life while browsing. The browser, for example, now requires significantly less CPU usage when loading the Google search results page and various other websites.

The other technical changes to Chrome for OS X are outlined as follows:

"The team has been working on addressing this; here are some cases that have recently been improved on trunk:

http://crbug.com/460102

Before: Renderers for background tabs had the same priority as for foreground tabs.
Now: Renderers for background tabs get a lower priority, reducing idle wakeups on various perf test, in some cases by significant amounts (e.g. 50% on one test).

http://crbug.com/485371

Before: On a Google search results page, using Safari's user agent to get the same content that Safari would, Chrome incurs ~390 wakes over 30s and 0.3% CPU usage vs. Safari's 120 wakes over 30s and 0.1% CPU usage.
Now: 66% reduction in both timer firings and CPU use. Chrome is now incurring ~120 wakes over 30s and 0.1% CPU use, on par with Safari.

http://crbug.com/489936

Before: On capitalone.com, Chromium incurs ~1010 wakeups over 30s vs. Safari's ~490 wakes.
Now: ~30% reduction in timer firings. Chrome is now incurring ~721 wakeups over 30s.

http://crbug.com/493350

Before: On amazon.com, Chromium incurs 768 wakups over 30s and consumes ~0.7% CPU vs. Safari's 312 wakes over 30s and ~0.1% CPU.
Now: ~59% reduction in timer firings and ~70% reduction in CPU use. Chrome is now incurring ~316 wakeups over 30s, and 0.2% CPU use, on par with Safari at 312 wakes, and 0.1% CPU use."

Many of the changes will first appear in Chromium before going live on Chrome for OS X.

Article Link: Google Improving Chrome for OS X Performance to Better Rival Safari

 

[MacrumoursUser]

Been using Safari since v2 and never had a thought to switch. Even when i tried to use firefox and chrome i'd come back to safari in couple of days. On Windows Chrome is the best for me hands down.

 

[Northgrove]

Finally! This should help not only performance as in perceived speed, but battery life as well.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Too late chrome.

I'm way too addicted to Safari's speed, efficiency, and UI.
You're staying as my backup browser.

 

[macintologist]

The performance difference between Safari and Chrome is like night and day. On websites where Safari scrolls in 60 frames per second, Chrome stutters. All you have to do is look at the CPU utilization when Chrome runs a specific website and compare that to Safari, and you will see exactly why I never use Chrome.

 

[Dargoth]

The performance difference between Safari and Chrome is like night and day. On websites where Safari scrolls in 60 frames per second, Chrome stutters. All you have to do is look at the CPU utilization when Chrome runs a specific website and compare that to Safari, and you will see exactly why I never use Chrome.

It's actually somewhat laughable... Google decided they'd fork WebKit and have their own engine for Chrome, and this is what they ended up with. I suppose as long as they can data-mine the hell out of their customers, what's the big deal if the performance isn't quite up to snuff, right? Kinda like Java on a phone. I never completely understood that.

 

[yg17]

I've used Chrome for years and never had ANY problems. I don't know WTF everyone's complaining about. If Apple bought Chrome and stuck their logo on it, suddenly everyone here would love it.

 

[jvaska]

Safari needs to create a robust extension environment - Chrome kills in this area.

I would prefer to use Safari but until that happens I grudgingly am sticking with Chrome.

 

[Dargoth]

I've used Chrome for years and never had ANY problems. I don't know WTF everyone's complaining about. If Apple bought Chrome and stuck their logo on it, suddenly everyone here would love it.

Nice theory, but actually, I like chrome in terms of its UI and features. It's just lagging behind Safari in certain areas I care about. Not everyone is as stupid as you think they are.

 

[Crosscreek]

I use both depending on what I want to do. Chrome has improved a lot over the past year and has very useful extensions. Windows chrome is excellent especially in Windows 10 Technical Review running in Parallels 10.

 

[lincolntran]

I've used Chrome for years and never had ANY problems. I don't know WTF everyone's complaining about. If Apple bought Chrome and stuck their logo on it, suddenly everyone here would love it.

SPEED, my friend, SPEED!

And also things like efficiency and power consumption.

 

[Mrjoedot]

Safari works WAY better on OS X
Chrome works best on Windows

 

[ShadovvMoon]

I never use Chrome when I'm low on battery xD

 

[JosephAW]

This will go away when apple closes the door on all third party applications and only allows approved api as iOS already requires. Then only apple applications will use custom code.
We'll probably see this in the OS X that will run on the A12 desktop computers when they drop Intel.

 

[teslo]

I've used Chrome for years and never had ANY problems. I don't know WTF everyone's complaining about. If Apple bought Chrome and stuck their logo on it, suddenly everyone here would love it.

bullpucky. my 2010 mbp and the 2 retina pros i've had in the last few years start heating up to physically burning, and pumping the fan at full blast with chrome, lots of slowdown/crashes, no matter what settings or preferences i choose. same with my gf's 2011 mbp.

so i guess if apple re-branded it i wouldn't notice this (and google wouldn't have to maximize efficiency as reported in the article you're commenting on)...

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

This will go away when apple closes the door on all third party applications and only allows approved api as iOS already requires. Then only apple applications will use custom code.
We'll probably see this in the OS X that will run on the A12 desktop computers when they drop Intel.

Only Apple approved APIs sounds fine to me, just as long as we're allowed to distribute outside the App Store. As long as Apple has rules as strict as the ones for the App Store, I don't want to distribute via it.

 

[SgtPepper12]

I made a python script that generates a html-document that displays all the pictures that it finds inside the folder it is executed in (just some doodle). It is very simple, but is quite demanding for the rendering engine of the browser (especially for >100 pictures). Safari is 100% buttery smooth (constantly 60 Hz without a single stutter), Opera has just very occasional stutters (but lower memory usage), Chrome is stuttering very noticeably and Firefox is by far the worst, using 80% CPU and somehow using up 2 GB of memory (when all other browsers managed fine with just 60-100 MB) and heavy stuttering.

I guess what I want to say is that apparently there's a lot you can do wrong with browsers and they are not the same at all. Especially Firefox is at it's worst condition since it was launched, I don't know what the hell the developers are doing here. It's extremely CPU and memory hungry and it's implementations of CSS3 and HTML5 are also the worst of all browsers (I actually had to change the code because Firefox was the only browser that couldn't handle one particular bit of CSS3). So stay away from Firefox and if you need/want an alternative to Safari, look into Opera, it's actually a great browser and overlooked for no good reason.

 

[Dargoth]

Only Apple approved APIs sounds fine to me, just as long as we're allowed to distribute outside the App Store. As long as Apple has rules as strict as the ones for the App Store, I don't want to distribute via it.

It's a tough call... On the one hand, there's tremendous exposure on the App Store and on the other hand you sacrifice a ton of coding freedom by being bound by a restrictive sandbox. Some apps are just not viable (or possible) on the App Store.

 

[5aga]

I use Safari on my rMBP but used to use Chrome. Seems like the past couple of years its been a huge battery hog.

 

[philosopherdog]

Outside of Gmail it's difficult to think of a single product Google has done right. nothing they do is really taken to the point where it just works. I include search in that statement. But the problem is that they stifle innovation in the long run since they crush competitors throughout the web and mobile space. We would all be better off with a diversity of players rather than these huge monster companies, especially ones in the business of mining your data.

 

[happydude]

Great, the backup browser for Firefox as a backup browser to Safari will work better now. Thanks, chrome! You'll always be my #3

 

[TruthWatcher412]

I like chrome on my windows PC but on my Mac I'll always use Safari as it works best in my opinion, just personal preference.

 

[Sirious]

I wish they would work a bit on the animations when going back and forward pages, using gestures.

 

[2457282]

Been using Safari since v2 and never had a thought to switch. Even when i tried to use firefox and chrome i'd come back to safari in couple of days. On Windows Chrome is the best for me hands down.

Although I agree, I am surprised a little by this. I use chrome at work because I am tortured with a windows machine running on a 5 year old laptop. There is no question that chrome is better there. And since there is no privacy at work, privacy is not a concern.

But at home I always use safari on all my apple hardware. My surprise is that I have heard and read so many saying that chrome is better than safari. So having Google admit this is not shocking but surprising.

Anyway, safari works for me so I am sticking with that.

 

[iBlazed]

Will it work with handoff from my iPhone? No? Not happening then.

Not to mention Safari is simply the best browser for a Mac. I have chrome and Firefox, but they're just backup browsers.