So how much worse is Chrome than Safari for battery now? ...

[cmeisenzahl]

I remember reading many times over the last 2+ years about how hard Chrome is on a Mac laptop battery compared to Safari.

I haven't owned an Apple laptop in years so I didn't pay much attention. But both of my kids in college have MBPs, so I advised them to use Safari.

Though in the last 6 months I've read several articles claiming that Chrome has improved quite a bit in this regard. And since I just bought a new 13.3" MBA, I'm curious again. So how do you find Chrome vs. Safari lately with respect to battery life on Sierra?

Thanks in advance,
Chris

 

[Lawzen]

Hey, I'm just like you! I recently got a new 13 MBA too
I've been trying to see if there is a big difference as well. From what I've been observing, Chrome has gotten better with power consumption.

 

[boast]

I've been wanting someone to make a new article comparing them as well.

 

[zarathu]

When I run Safari, my MBP(late 2013, 2.6 ghz, 16 gb RAM, internal Iris pro 5200 graphic) tends to run very cool. The aluminum case doesn't even get warm. When I run Chrome, it can get warm, and sometimes the fans even come on at low level. Using Fire fox, the case gets very warm.

Safari takes way way less energy to run, and is much less affected by malware that Chrome's anti malware program runs overtime to have to stop.

 

[KALLT]

I am using a modified version of Chromium (with Google components removed) and found that it uses at least a third more energy on average. I cannot say how this applies to Chrome though. I am also basing this on Activity Monitor, so the impact is difficult to compare.

Safari is just extremely efficient. It also handles memory very well without causing any bottle necks.