I will consider Chrome a malware from now on..

[russell_314]

When I first got M1 MBA the battery life is spectacular, and it ran really cool. I never shut down my laptop just close the lid when call it a night. The first couple of nights the battery was down only 2-3% when lid was closed.

Then I installed Chrome..

Gradually my MBA ran hotter. Battery life was obviously shorter, and battery lost at night was unusually high - around 6-8%.
The night before I closed the lid at 48% but woke up to it at 30%. That's almost 20% battery lost over night just sleeping. ?

Then I read this thread

chrome + keystone = slow mac?

found an interesting post on reddit about chrome using a program called keystone that apparently hides itself from activity monitor that slows your computer whether or not chrome is in use. link: any of you tech savvy guys/gals can chime in? i am not the OP of that post i am, in no way...

forums.macrumors.com

and this tweet

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1337832978253230081

..and yesterday I decided to delete Chrome.

I noticed suddenly for the same tasks that used to consume CPU 16-18% now it's only 10-12%. The CPU graph in Activity Monitor is constantly lower. (and this was when Chrome wasn't opened. This tells me Chrome can affect performance even when not in use)
Last night I close the lid when battery was at 75%. This morning I open it and it is at 73%.
View attachment 1694187

Goodbye Chrome. You won't be missed. ?

Calling it malware is a bit of an exaggeration but it is adware. Chrome isn't going to hack your banking account but it will mine your data. I was a big Chrome fan but not anymore. If anything use Firefox while it's still available. It's the only non chromium browser other than Safari. After it goes down Google will own the browser market.

 

[russell_314]

I have this same issue and Safari doesn't run Google Meet well and some of my colleagues insist on using it as it's the default option in Google Calendar.

Ugh, otherwise, I've transitioned over to Safari seemlessly and find it a nicer experience.

Google does this on purpose so you will use Chrome. They got caught purposely modifying the YouTube website so it would slow down Internet Explorer. The took down IE and now their only competition is Firefox. They almost have it down unfortunately.

 

[Castaway]

Worth a read if you're interested in investigation of the claims in the original article: https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/14/chrome-slowing-down-mac-performance/

 

[acidfast7_redux]

Google does this on purpose so you will use Chrome. They got caught purposely modifying the YouTube website so it would slow down Internet Explorer. The took down IE and now their only competition is Firefox. They almost have it down unfortunately.

Yeah. I'm aware of that when Zoom runs brill and uses no battery and then Meet can't run in Safari??????

Google you ain't fooling no one but my colleagues that select the default option.

 

[matrix07]

Worth a read if you're interested in investigation of the claims in the original article: https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/14/chrome-slowing-down-mac-performance/

When I installed Chrome it's not "suddenly" slow down my Mac, and WindowServer didn't "suddenly" unusually spiked high as well so I suspect his 30 minutes test wouldn't yield much. It took more than a week for my Mac to started downhill. And I would suspect it doesn't slow things down daily but often enough to be noticeable over time. And when it's bad it's ugly bad.
Before this we don't have a laptop that has excellent battery life to be noticeable. And like Rene Ritchie said in his podcast, likely people will blame Apple (or blame Intel) because the slow down happened when Chrome isn't running and in his case he blamed Catalina. But now we have new laptop with excellent battery so it's easy to see when things get a bit worse.

 

[bluecoast]

In the next version of macOS I really hope that Apple cleans up how apps are installed and uninstalled in macOS.

In 2020, you really shouldn’t have to go into the user and system library folders to manually get rid of all traces of applications on your machine.

 

[matrix07]

In the next version of macOS I really hope that Apple cleans up how apps are installed and uninstalled in macOS.

Apple solved this with Mac App Store but developers want freedom. This thing will happen to iOS as well if 3rd party developer get their wishes.

 

[TrueBlou]

I remember the (naive) days donkeys years ago, when I thought Google could do no wrong. Y’know, back before I ever read a privacy policy, or used one of their desktop apps, well, there weren’t any to be fair.

These days I avoid them as much as I can, I’ll certainly never install Chrime, sorry Crome ? on any system I own, Firefox is just fine for those occasions when Safari doesn’t work.

 

[bluecoast]

Apple solved this with Mac App Store but developers want freedom. This thing will happen to iOS as well if 3rd party developer get their wishes.

Agreed. I do think for the Mac it’s important to allow apps to be installed out of the App Store, though. I’d be happier if the App Store had independent oversight, but that’s probably another debate.

I think though that the reins should be tightened on what apps can install - and I’d like to see Apple finally make a proper system wide uninstaller for Mac apps.

 

[cfdlab]

Google is primarily an advertising company, which is how they make most of their money. So being a parasite is in their genes. With android and chrome they have spread their tentacles into everything we do. I have been avoiding chrome like the plague. I rarely use Meet, but it works ok for me in safari and I use Brave if there is some problem.

 

[GiantKiwi]

If you need a Chromium based browser just use Edge - it has the same compatibility, is fast, has no Google data mining hooks and its update processes run through the normal MacOS channels.

Microsoft are worse than Google for data slurping, so you trade a lesser to a greater evil by going that route.

 

[retta283]

Oh yeah, can't forget memory leaks from Google update either but that'll be installed onto your system even if you install Google plugins into Firefox/Safari.

 

[TrueBlou]

Microsoft are worse than Google for data slurping, so you trade a lesser to a greater evil by going that route.

Ok, I’ll hold my hands up and admit this first - I’ve not looked into the browser, beyond what I’ve learned in passing, so I may be completely wrong.

But wouldn’t Brave be better? Isn’t it a Chromium and privacy focused browser?

 

[Ploki]

i ditched Chrome on my 2012 Retina MacBook pro already, due to fan noise (that's an obvious consequence of hogging resources).

 

[GiantKiwi]

Ok, I’ll hold my hands up and admit this first - I’ve not looked into the browser, beyond what I’ve learned in passing, so I may be completely wrong.

But wouldn’t Brave be better? Isn’t it a Chromium and privacy focused browser?

If you are genuinely that concerned about it, use Vivaldi or Brave.

Vivaldi is for users wanting to customise to their own precise use-case.

Brave is for users who find the above too difficult.

 

[macnmac]

Worth a read if you're interested in investigation of the claims in the original article: https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/14/chrome-slowing-down-mac-performance/

i saw this article too, another thing i found interesting while going through the hundreds of comments on reddit that this seems to affect intel macs but not really the m1 macs... it would be nice if google can address this but we know that will never happen

 

[TrueBlou]

If you are genuinely that concerned about it, use Vivaldi or Brave.

Vivaldi is for users wanting to customise to their own precise use-case.

Brave is for users who find the above too difficult.

It was more a possible suggestion to the chromium war between Edge and Chrome, I have no interest in it myself, I'm perfectly happy with Safari for 99.98% of my browsing needs and Firefox for the couple of sites which refuse to work with Safari at the moment. But thanks for the suggestion, I'm always interested in learning about new things.

 

[xylitol]

i saw this article too, another thing i found interesting while going through the hundreds of comments on reddit that this seems to affect intel macs but not really the m1 macs... it would be nice if google can address this but we know that will never happen

Intel Macs are easier to bring to their knees...

 

[badsimian]

There are people like myself who use Chrome as a tool only, not for day to day browsing. For example it has profiles, which is handy at my job and the Windows machines we use Chrome on.

Similar to Firefox, it has container tabs, which is handy when I need to be logged into the same website with multiple credentials.

Edge supports exactly the same profile mechanism, I use Edge profiles for logging into various Office 365 and Azure services under different tenants/accounts.

 

[drsox]

whats a good ad blocker for safari?

Used to use AdblockPlus but switched to using AdGuard. Can't remember now why I changed but AG has been fine.

 

[Captain Trips]

I have not installed Chrome yet. Safari has been good to me...

Same here - I have installed Firefox for anything I can't do in Safari.

The only thing I haven't yet figured out how to do is only save selected content on a web page when I save a web page as a PDF file. Firefox lets me do that, and I am fine with this situation until I figure out how to do the same in Safari or until a future Safari update lets me do this.

 

[Captain Trips]

Used to use AdblockPlus but switched to using AdGuard. Can't remember now why I changed but AG has been fine.

I have been using AdGuard for Safari v1.8.10 for both Intel and M1 Macs and I have been satisfied with how well it blocks ads for me.

 

[Amenard]

I’ve always hated Chrome. I will never use it. Ever.

You may still use it without knowing. If your application is based on nodejs you're still running chromium, which is chrome without the branding.

 

[Tech198]

It's a secret Google plot!

Surprised it's been doing that. I've had Chrome installed on prior Macs but only as a just in case I needed it for something specific since Safari always did most things just fine.

Will avoid installing it.

no secret anymore :0

Chrome may be hog, but Firefox runs multiple processors... The argument for that is so tabs don't crash and halt everything else..

Big deal.... That's not really a very good reason.

 

[macnmac]

switching over to safari, i noticed that it uses way more memory for open tabs than chrome... with 4-5 tabs, my mem usage was up to 10gb already... with chrome, i can do double with the same mem usage... both with no swapping