Advertisement Chrome is, for many people, the first thing installed on a new MacBook. It makes sense: in its early days Chrome gained a reputation for being lightweight and fast. It was better than Safari and Firefox, people said. And it was true, at the time. It’s not the case anymore. In fact, I’d argue that you shouldn’t use Chrome on a MacBook if you can avoid it. Over the years Chrome became a bloated program that doesn’t integrate well with OS X, and it happened so slowly most Chrome users haven’t noticed.

Here are ten reasons every Mac-loving Chrome user should consider switching. Chrome Drains Your MacBook Battery Battery life has been a huge feature for Apple in recent releases of OS X. Mavericks brought energy impact measuring tools to the operating system, which you can find by clicking your battery icon right now. If you’ve got Chrome running, Chrome will show up here. It’s been said a thousand times, but it’s worth saying again: if battery life is important to you, avoid using Chrome.

Even on 4-year-old MacBooks, replacing Chrome with Safari can give you an extra hour of battery life in some cases. Google is reportedly working on the issue, and has made progress, but the job is far from finished. And you don’t have to take my word for it: open up the Activity Monitor on your Mac, then head to the “Energy” section. Open some tabs in Chrome and the same ones in another browser – Chrome will almost always use more energy for the same job. It’s particularly true for Netflix, if you want a test case. Your Fans Will Occasionally Sound Like Jet Engines Watching an HD video in Chrome will spin up the fans on this Macbook something crazy.

Nice and cool. — Chris Ashby (2pix)?? (@2pixelwide) The low battery life isn’t for no reason: it’s because Chrome uses more CPU power to accomplish the same thing as Safari.

Partially this is because of inefficiency, and partially its because Chrome’s priority is speed. Either way, I’ve personally heard way more of my fan while using Chrome than while not. And I’m not alone. It’s kind of nuts that Chrome sets off the fans in my 2015 Macbook Pro when like Final Cut and Adobe Premier don’t — Larry Madill (@larrymadill) 3.

Chrome Does Things Its Own Way, Not the Mac Way I ranted about this extensively when I talked about the reasons I hate Chrome, but it’s worth stating again: ChromeOS is the worst thing that ever happened to Chrome on other platforms. Don’t get me wrong, ChromeOS is a great operating system, but the volume of stuff Chrome takes along with it to other platforms makes it a worse browser on the Mac. It simply doesn’t integrate with the OS well. Case in point: notifications.

Apple introduced a system-wide notifications system with Mountain Lion way back in 2012. This means notifications all look the same, never overlap each other, and can be browsed all in one archive if you miss something. Chrome could use this system, but doesn’t: it uses a completely separate notification system. These don’t play nicely with other notifications, meaning they’ll cover up those ones.

They also don’t show up in the system-wide notification system, so you can’t reference them later there. There are plenty of other differences. Most Mac apps close instantly when you hit CMD-Q; Chrome makes you hold the combo for a while.

Most Mac apps have their own preferences window; Chrome uses a website in a tab for that. Whether you like these changes or not, you’ve got to admit Chrome just doesn’t work the way Mac apps do. And if you’re using a Mac, it must at least be in part because you like the way Mac apps work. Chrome Can Slow Down Your Entire Mac I can’t remember the last time a non-technical person asked me why their Mac was slow and it wasn’t a result of dozens of open Chrome tabs. — Anoop Ranganath (@anoopr). It’s a related point, I realize, but it’s worth stating: Chrome uses a lot of CPU power. Part of this is the priority on speed, part of it is inefficient programming, but shut down Chrome on many Macs and everything feels faster.

Not just browsing: everything. The Confusing Extension/App/Whatever Ecosystem There’s a folder Chrome put on my computer that looks like this: You might like this feature, but it seems out of place to me. I have some questions for Google:.

Why?. No seriously: why?

When I click these, they only open in Chrome. How is this different from bookmarks? Why do they need their own folder?. Does this make more sense if you use “actual” Chrome apps? Why are the default “apps” offered just bookmarks to Google products? Which insist on showing up when I use Spotlight?. Why is there three of the same app so many times?

Did I accidentally create some user profiles? Why don’t user profiles have their own folders?. Seriously, I just checked, I don’t have any other profiles, what gives?. I tried deleting the folder; it came back. Umm It’s related to the point above, sure, but it’s just another way in which Chrome seems to do its own thing regardless of what’s normal on the Mac ecosystem. Why not populate a folder with “Apps” that are mostly bookmarks, all of which require Chrome to open? It’s the kind of thing you expect from Windows crapware, not a leading Mac browser.

Google Doesn’t Need Help Watching You You might not know it while reading this article, but I’m actually a longtime Google fan. Getting access to Gmail during the invite-only beta was a college triumph of mine, and I’m pretty sure I had a Google sign on my dorm room wall back in 2004. I’ve worked extensively for companies that do little more than set up Google Apps for Business, and I think that Chromebooks are an excellent device for the education market. Having said that, over the years I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with how much information Google has about me.

My Gmail account is an archive of my communications, for example, and search is basically an extension of my conciousness. It’s part of why I DuckDuckGo might be the privacy-focused search engine you've been looking for. But do its features hold up? We look at DuckDuckGo vs. Google to find out. and haven’t looked back.

I was just tired of feeling like my internal monologue was being watched (and monetized). Using Chrome to search with DuckDuckGo feels weird, though. Are the auto-suggestions still coming from Google? Is Google still using my Chrome account to track me in some way? It sounds paranoid, post-Snowden being paranoid isn’t necessarily being irrational. I feel more comfortable just not using Chrome. Mac Support Feels Like an Afterthought I’ve written more than once how I feel like It took someone outside Google hacking away at CSS to finally offer a decent Hangouts experience on desktops and laptops – and you can give it a shot right now if you're a Chrome user., and to me the lack of a dedicated app is the reason for that.

Put simply: if you don’t use Chrome, there isn’t a dedicated app. If you do use Chrome, it doesn’t fit in. Here’s the Hangouts extension covering my dock, something no other app on the Mac does: The app version behaves weirdly too: it shows up on every desktop by default, something no other app does. The fact that there is both an extension and an app called “Hangouts” that serve the same function but behave completely differently is bad enough, but the way neither behaves like a proper Mac app makes it so much worse. Cei ensight 10.2.3a gold free download java profiler 14 for mac.

Oh, and the notifications for Hangouts: they don’t integrate with the OS X notification center. Why would they? No Support For Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion Mountain Lion came out in 2012, not that long ago, but if you’re still using that operating system Chrome updates are being cut off. Google announced the change back in November. Sure, you can update your OS free of charge, but many people don’t want to for a variety of reasons, including older computers that don’t support the latest version of OS X. Safari Has Gotten Really Good For a long time, the collective response to the above points was “Sure, but nothing is better”.

Which was fair back in 2012, but Chrome or Safari? It's not a clear-cut answer. Truth is, brand loyalty is counter-productive. You should revisit your options regularly to see if maybe something better exists.

And none of the above criticisms apply to Apple’s browser, which is well-integrated on the Mac. Seriously, if you haven’t tried this browser out for a while you don’t know what you’re missing. Even the extension ecosystem has come a long way: the most common tools are already waiting for you.

It’ll be an adjustment, but you’ll never look back. Safari Integrates Better With Apple Products If you’re all-in with the Apple platform, Safari is the better choice. All the little things just integrate better: your passwords, for example, are managed by Apple’s system-wide tool and synced using iCloud. Same goes for your Bookmarks.

Continuity only works with Safari. I could go on, but you get the idea: Apple’s browser is better integrated with Apple’s ecosystem. If you care about that, Safari is the clear choice. Reasonable People Can Disagree Whatever your take, I’d love to have a chat with you about all this.

Let me know what browser you use on your Mac, and why. Or get into your own Chrome complaints, if you like.

Maybe you absolutely love Chrome on your Macbook – fair enough. If you use Android, for example, or a Chromebook, the full browser syncing might be a killer app for you. If you dislike both Safari and Chrome, you can always look to our list of It is not that Safari is a bad browser or that it has a limited feature set - you may just want a different focus, or major updates more than once a year. And note that it’s entirely possible to Is it possible to run the flagship Microsoft browser on an OSX machine? Read on to find out if you absolutely need to.

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Few computer issues are as annoying as a slow browser experience. And unfortunately no browser has a big “Fix Everything Now” button you can click to magically make it work again. Google Chrome’s settings can be particularly frustrating, with features and fixes seemingly hidden in a confusing interface that doesn’t act like a Mac application at all. Luckily, you can use an app like CleanMyMac to do some helpful troubleshooting. Can clear Chrome’s caches, cookies, and site data.

It lets you manage your extensions and can even reset the entire application to make Chrome act like new again. But not every problem is quite that dire, so here are a number of tips for identifying and fixing the most common Chrome issues. How to kill a frozen tab or window in Chrome If one of your tabs or windows in Chrome just stops responding — so badly that you can’t even close it — don’t worry, it’s an easy fix:. Go to Window Task Manager in the menu bar. Find the problem window or tab, click to select it, and then End Process. That will kill whatever process is keeping the tab from loading correctly.

The tab will probably show an error message saying, “Something went wrong,” but just click the X on the tab to close it. If Chrome is just completely frozen, you can force-quit the entire app by pressing Command–Option–Escape, then selecting Chrome in the Force Quit Applications window and clicking Force Quit. How to disable Flash and check for out-of-date components You used to be able to disable Adobe Flash Player on Chrome’s plugins page, but it (chrome://plugins) was removed as of version 57. Now you can visit its replacement (chrome://components) to see if any of Chrome’s components, including Adobe Flash Player, are out of date and apply an update.

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Ideally, all of them should be updated behind the scenes, but you never know. Adobe Flash Player comes baked into Chrome, so its settings are now on the main settings page (chrome://settings or Chrome Preferences in your Mac’s menu bar), tucked inside Advanced Privacy & Security Content Settings. The shortcut right to this section is chrome://settings/content. Click Flash and disable the switch next to Ask First to block sites from using Flash entirely. The Block and Allow sections below also let you blacklist or whitelist Flash on a site-by-site basis. What to do if Chrome is running slow If Chrome is just moving like molasses and you aren’t sure why, it’s time to do a troubleshooting routine that could isolate the issue. We’ll start with the basics, like clearing caches and cookies, and then work our way up more advanced steps.

Clear the cache, cookies, and site data You’ll have to log into sites again, but this step is often enough to speed things up noticeably. It’s also the easiest fix, which is why we recommend to try it first. To clear the data via Chrome browser settings:. Open Chrome Preferences in the menu bar or just type chrome://settings as the URL. You can also use the Command–comma keyboard shortcut. Scroll down to the Advanced section and click Advanced to expand all the options.

At the bottom of a section labeled Privacy and Security, you’ll see an option to Clear Browser Data. Click the arrow to expand it and change the Time Range drop-down from Last Hour to All Time.

In the Basic tab, leave the boxes checked to clear your browsing history, cookies, and other site data, as well as cached images and files. Then click Clear Data at the bottom. For a faster result, use to clean the caches of Chrome and any other browsers, as well as cookies, local storage, saved passwords, autofill values, and more. It’s much more convenient since you can clean every browser with just a few clicks, rather than having to dig into the settings of each browser. Just click Privacy in the sidebar, choose Chrome from the list, and select what you want to clear. Check extensions with Chrome’s Incognito mode Browse in Incognito mode by opening a new window (File New Incognito Window or Shift–Command–N). While you’re in Incognito, Chrome rejects cookies and site data, and doesn’t keep your history or any info you enter into forms.

But more importantly for us, Chrome also disables your extensions, so this is a good way to tell if one of your extensions is causing the slowdown. If Incognito mode seems to speed things back up, you can try turning your extensions back on one-by-one. That way if you experience slow performance, you’ll know it was probably the extension you just enabled. To do this, click the button with three vertical dots at the top-right of the browser window, then select More Tools Extensions. For each extension that’s enabled, you’ll see another checkbox to Allow In Incognito. Some extensions can’t run in Incognito mode at all, so you can do this test again in normal browsing mode by disabling all the extensions and then re-enabling them one-by-one.

And while you’re at it, it’s a good idea to disable any extensions you aren’t using anyway. Disable hardware acceleration If your Chrome is running slow, you might think to enable hardware acceleration. Well, many Mac users on Google’s Chrome Help Forum report the opposite: that Chrome runs better on macOS Sierra and High Sierra with this option turned off. To check if you’re using hardware acceleration, visit Chrome’s Settings (Chrome Preferences or chrome://settings) and open the Advanced panel.

Almost all the way to the bottom, you’ll find a switch labeled Use Hardware Acceleration When Available. If it’s unchecked, try checking it. If it’s checked (which it should be by default), try turning it off. After you’ve changed the setting, the word Relaunch appears. Click it to relaunch Chrome.

Reset flags to default settings Chrome has experimental features called Flags, found by typing chrome://flags into the URL bar. Some of these can actually speed up your browsing, with tricks like using more threads to downloading raster images faster and loading low-priority iFrames last. These are experimental features, and if Chrome isn’t acting the way you’d like, you might get some relief by setting all the Flags back to their default settings. To do this, go to chrome://flags and click Reset All To Default at the top of the page. Reset Chrome If you’re still having troubles and none of the above helps, you can reset all of Chrome’s settings, basically restoring it to its freshly installed state, although this method still saves your bookmarks and stored passwords. To do this, open Chrome Preferences in the menu bar, then scroll down to the bottom, opening the Advanced menu if it’s not open already. At the very bottom you’ll see an option to Reset, which restores all the settings to their defaults.

This can really help if an extension has been changing your settings without your explicit knowledge. Resetting Chrome does delete all your extensions, themes, cookies, pinned tabs, your saved homepage, and startup tabs, as well as content settings. But the browser may work better in its natural state, and then you can re-add extensions and re-adjust settings as needed. Naturally, can reset Chrome as well.

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Just click the Uninstaller tool in the sidebar, then find Chrome in the list of applications. Right-click on the arrow and select the Application Reset, next to the Complete Uninstallation. Of course, uninstalling and re-installing Chrome is a more drastic step than just resetting it, but if you do decide to uninstall the whole app, CleanMyMac will make sure to get all the associated files and preferences, everywhere they exist on your Mac. Try Chrome Canary Another tip is to consider, which is a beta version of Chrome meant for developers and early adopters. It’s less stable than the regular shipping version of Chrome but has all the latest updates, so sometimes it does have fixes that aren’t in the main version yet. Some Mac users who couldn’t get Chrome to even launch report having a much easier time with Chrome Canary. You don’t have to uninstall Chrome to install Canary either; they can coexist side by side.

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Again, Canary is beta software, and Google admits it “can be prone to breakage.” It gets updates nearly every day, and it can be just the thing if you can’t figure out why the regular version of Chrome isn’t working properly. Using all the tips above and to easily manage them will speed up your Chrome considerably. It’s also a good practice to schedule a regular browser cleanup once in a few months to keep things running fresh at all times.