Battery drain on Macbook Air 2018 ... probably Chrome

[RLD]

Hi All

I have had my new Air for a week and the battery time is awful. Looking at Activity monitor it seems like Chrome is the big culprit. I have read that Chrome can be an issue, but with normal browsing and Youtube on Chrome the battery time is down to 6 hours.

Is this normal?

 

[jpn]

hi
sorry, don't know the answer to yr question. but it sounds terrible.
on my new MacBook Air 2018 i am getting about 8 hours of intensive use before i need to plug it in.
i consider this is quite good.
apple markets it as having "up to 12 hours" which would be typically meaning with very light work and some browsing and music playback.
so my 8 hours with really heavy disk work and off-loads onto other media, etc etc. is good, in my opinion.

 

[Audit13]

I stopped using Chrome in favour of Safari so I can use keychain with my iPhone and iPad. After switching, I find that the battery and memory usage went down.

 

[Falcon80]

hi
sorry, don't know the answer to yr question. but it sounds terrible.
on my new MacBook Air 2018 i am getting about 8 hours of intensive use before i need to plug it in.
i consider this is quite good.
apple markets it as having "up to 12 hours" which would be typically meaning with very light work and some browsing and music playback.
so my 8 hours with really heavy disk work and off-loads onto other media, etc etc. is good, in my opinion.

What kind of intensive work are you referring to?

 

[lpolarityl]

I guess it dpee

Hi All

I have had my new Air for a week and the battery time is awful. Looking at Activity monitor it seems like Chrome is the big culprit. I have read that Chrome can be an issue, but with normal browsing and Youtube on Chrome the battery time is down to 6 hours.

Is this normal?

Anything in a browser that streams video content is going to consume more battery.

 

[torana355]

Chrome for OSX sucks basically. Much better off using Safari you will get way better battery life and lower temps.

 

[PrinterJelle]

I think Youtube uses a lot of memory and energy. Maybe it works to install a adblocker? I'm using Firefox Quantum, very stable, fast and they are on a mission to keep the internet healthy. But the several browsers have all different pluses and minuses. Tonight I tried different browsers (Firefox, Safari, Brave and Vivaldi) with the same movie in Youtube and on this point Safari seems to have the best papers.

 

[jeraldjames]

I think Youtube uses a lot of memory and energy. Maybe it works to install a adblocker? I'm using Firefox Quantum, very stable, fast and they are on a mission to keep the internet healthy. But the several browsers have all different pluses and minuses. Tonight I tried different browsers (Firefox, Safari, Brave and Vivaldi) with the same movie in Youtube and on this point Safari seems to have the best papers.

Nice. My MacBook Air 2018 will arrive next week and I am so excited! By the way, I am using Firefox Quantum as my default browser on my other devices. I am not so comfy with Safari yet... and the problem is that I also use a Windows computer, especially at work where unfortunately, Safari is not available. I have all my bookmarks on Firefox.

Are you using a MacBook Air too?

 

[johannnn]

Chrome uses the most battery of all web browsers, it has been like that since Chrome was born.

I’d recommend Safari together with e.g. AdGuard extension. I’m not against ads per se, but some sites have tons of tracker javascripts that makes site slower.

 

[Kraizelburg]

My best bet is Firefox with uBlock origin, since release of firefox quantum this browser has gotten so much better in terms of performance and features, however battery wise safari is still the best.

As a note I use Firefox when plugged in and Safari when on battery.

Firefox is much better than chrome in terms of resources also bookmarks management is great plus Firefox Sync for passwords and bookmarks.

 

[KB23]

I've noticed chrome drains A LOT. Safari is much better and as mentioned above playing any sorts of video does indeed drain battery MUCH faster. I am able to get ~10-12 hours using Microsoft word/powerpoint with medium-highish screen brightness with my MacBook Air 2018. My MacBook Pro 2017 would not even get half that...