Google Chrome In Macbook Pro



Over the last couple of weeks, you may have noticed my social media posts about how to speed up your Mac if it starts running slow. That's because my laptop, a 13-inch mid-2014 MacBook Pro running OS X El Capitan, has been slow, and I don't mean just sluggish. This thing has had its fan on high at least 95% of the time and I can go start a load of laundry while I wait for new tabs to load.

In the case of the Google Chrome updater, it registers two services. The tests were performed on a 2019 16” MacBook Pro with a Core i9 processor and 16GB of RAM.

  1. Google Chrome eats RAM like there’s no tomorrow, so if your Mac computer is low on RAM, then that could be the issue why Chrome keeps crashing. If your Mac is good enough and still unable to run Chrome properly, then the problem is with the browser.
  2. Mar 04, 2021 Google Chrome is the most-used browser on the internet. The browser rose to fame as an alternative to slow, sluggish incumbents - Internet Explorer and Safari.

My Mac was doing a bang on impression of a sloth, and my work was suffering.

Air

I managed to work, but it was slow going. I swore. I kicked my desk. I clenched my fists. I ate a sandwich while I watched little circles go around and around over blank white space where websites and my work were supposed to be happening. I had a dream that I made a sandwich out of my laptop and ate it. It was crunchy. I claimed to hate Photoshop, Google, kernel_task, my internet provider, and whatever else I thought might be standing between me and a sane work environment.

I have spent hours over the last couple of weeks researching fixes that only took care of smaller portions of the problem without making my normal work pace even remotely possible.

The internet suggested the following things to speed up my laptop:

  • I shut down and restarted Photoshop several times. Nothing.

  • I restarted my computer. I restarted it again. I did this a lot. Nothing.

  • I ran CCleaner to free up some space and decluttered two-thirds of my old work files, culling over 60GB of unnecessary detritus, to see if too little memory was the issue. It wasn't.

  • I read articles (examples 1 , 2, and 3) about how changing your settings in the Google Chrome browser can help, because its Google Chrome Helper process tends to overhelp a lot. It turned out that Google Chrome Helper was eating up 98% of my CPU, so I did what the internet said and disabled plugins. This seemed to help for a short while, but then my system slowed back down again, and I realized that I must have another enemy to hunt down.

  • I read more articles (examples 1, 2, and 3) about something called 'kernel_task' that sometimes goes into overdrive because of battery and/or fan issues, or sometimes just because. When I checked my Activity Monitor, it turned out that kernel_task was using upwards of 300% of my CPU, but since kernel_task pretty much runs the computer, and I wasn't comfortable playing around with something called 'kext files', it didn't seem like there was much I could do in the short term. I watched the ridiculous numbers continue to soar on Activity Monitor while my fan roared.

  • I read that leaving your laptop plugged in all the time can overheat it if there are battery issues, so I unplugged it. Nope, that wasn't it, either.

  • I checked to make sure that all of the laptop's ports were free and clear and that the laptop stand was letting it breathe. Then, I folded myself a paper fan to cool the whole thing down manually. I actually did this, because times were desperate, but the laptop fan just wanted to run. And run and run and run and run.

  • We don't have an official Apple store in Saskatchewan, believe it or not, so making a Genius Bar appointment was not in my near future. I fell into hopelessness. I considered walking away from everything to build myself a shack in the forest where I could live off local wildlife and stolen vegetables. 'WHO NEEDS TO WORK? APPARENTLY, NOT ME' was the general tenor of my life.

And then I figured it all out, and the fix was simple.

What turned out to be the most crazy-making thing about this whole trial-and-error process wasn't that I hunted through hundreds of articles which all offered the same list of fixes. It wasn't the incessant fan noise or slow internet. It wasn't even that this seemed like something that just didn't need to be happening to a relatively young Mac that's been treated like a dear pet.

The most crazy-making thing about this whole process is that what fixed all of my laptop's problems — the perpetually running fan, Google Chrome Helper's overhelping, kernel_task's insane CPU usage, and the slow internet — was so damn simple.

I fixed my slow MacBook Pro by quitting the Google Chrome browser.

Yes, that's all I did.

Within moments of clicking 'Quit Google Chrome', Google Chrome Helper was no more, kernel_text dropped from using 300% of my CPU to less than 5%, the internet sped right up, and my fan stopped running. Seriously, that's it. Since yesterday, my laptop and internet have been running beautifully for the first time in weeks.

All the hours I spent reading tech articles and forum threads, all that time spent watching my Activity Monitor with dread and stressing about work, could all have been skipped if I had just switched browser at the beginning.

This might all be Google Chrome Helper's fault.

My theory, which is based on next to no actual hardware/software knowledge, so don't quote me, is that Google Chrome Helper's overhelping overtaxed the CPU, which triggered kernel_task to throttle activities and turn up the fan to deal with an overwhelmed system. As long as I run Google Chrome, I will have to deal with Google Chrome Helper, and that makes everything go, to use a more technical term, kablooey. As to why this doesn't affect every Mac, I have no idea, but this seems to be what affected mine.

My next computer will have 32GB of ram, 24GB for Google Chrome Helper and 8GB for everything else.

— Ryan Detzel (@ryandetzel) April 8, 2016

It's too bad, because I liked using Chrome as my default browser. I like its extensions. I like how it looks. I liked how it functioned. I've been using it long enough that I don't have to think about how I do things; I just do them. It was my dream browser, but like that one suitor who read his love poetry to me out loud on a crowded bus, it was just too much.

So, if your Mac is barely crawling along, its fan won't quit, and you don't want to mess with your computer's deeper systems, try quitting Chrome. I hear the Safari browser does a decent job of things these days.

And now it's back to work for me. Huzzah!

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In the early days of Mac, its default web browser wasn’t what you might expect. Surprisingly for all, Microsoft had struck a deal with Apple to ship Macs with Internet Explorer right out of the box. However, once the contract was done, Apple quickly released their own browser called Safari.

Unfortunately for Apple’s new browser, a stronger alternative under the name of Google Chrome browser had already snapped up the market share. Mac users were attracted to Google due to its search and mail services — roughly one third of all Macs use Chrome as their default browser as of 2019. With only a few options competing for the same market, the name of the game has become cross-platform.

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Getting Started With Chrome On Mac

Web browsers have come a long way in recent years, with most reaching some sort of feature parity and common user experience, which makes switching between them fairly easy. Chrome browser for Mac is no exception, but the sheer number of users have led to it having an interesting advantage in the marketplace — mostly due to Chrome’s presence on any device, from iPhones to Windows desktops. If you’ve been considering a switch and are wondering how to install Chrome on Mac, your best guide is below.

The benefits of Google Chrome for Mac

Macbook

There are good reasons for Mac users to prefer Chrome, especially with its natural overlap with other Google products. Users, for example, can sign into their Google Account on Chrome and have it synchronize with their other devices, integrating account data and preferences accordingly. More reasons to make the switch to Chrome include:

  • Web developer tools make it easy to test web apps on Chrome, which means strong compatibility with the latest sites and tech standards

  • Support by nearly every device and operating system, including Windows and Apple products, whereas Safari is only available in iOS and macOS

  • An impressive library of browser extensions, which grant additional capabilities, such as ad-blocking and custom integrations. It’s true that most other browsers also use extensions, but the wider support for Chrome means more developers can get the best bang for their buck by releasing their products on Chrome first.

Truth be told, Chrome isn’t without its downsides. A common complaint one might hear is that Google Chrome for Mac uses a lot of system memory (and therefore laptop battery), especially when lots of tabs are open and running.

One might argue it’s because Chrome has some of the best security and malware protection, which inherently uses more RAM and battery to accommodate its scans — but whatever the reason, it’s not impossible to mitigate — just use Endurance.

Endurance is a lightweight utility that helps you take back the control of your battery life, sometimes extending it by up to 20%. In just a few clicks, Endurance will lower your processor speed, hide background apps, and dim the screen to preserve battery when you don’t need to be using it in full brightness — perfect for when you’re in and out of Google Chrome.

How to download and install Chrome for Mac

Not sure how to install Google Chrome for Mac? It’s all very simple, but you’ll need to use a different web browser (like Safari) to download Chrome for Mac first:

  1. Open Safari (or other web browser) then navigate to google.com/chrome

  2. Hit Download Chrome for Mac

  3. A new window will appear asking you to agree to the Terms of Use. If you agree, click on Accept and Install.

  4. When the Chrome for Mac download is finished, open the file called googlechrome.dmg and go through the installation process

  5. Drag the Chrome icon to the Applications folder when asked — the last step before you finally have Chrome on Mac

  6. Launch Google Chrome from Applications or straight from your Dock

  7. Remove the Google Chrome download for Mac from the Downloads folder by dragging it to the Trash

Now that you know how to download Google Chrome, you might want to make Chrome default browser on Mac. To do this, simply open it and click the three dots in the top-right corner, followed by Settings, then in the Default Browser section click Make Default.

If you’re wondering how to update Google Chrome on Mac, you don’t have to — Chrome will do this automatically the next time you launch the browser, so you never have to worry about having to look for the latest version.

Making the best use of Google Chrome

Chrome is already a fast web browser, but it can be even faster if you take full advantage of its keyboard shortcuts. From how to search a page on Mac through to opening and closing tabs, here are a few to help you become more productive:

  • Open a private window for browsing (called Incognito mode) with ⌘ + Shift + N

  • Open a new tab in a snap using ⌘ + T

  • Close that same tab by hitting ⌘ + W

  • Jump to specific tabs holding Command and selecting a number (e.g. 1, 2, or 9). This shortcut will take you directly to the tab number reading from left to right.

  • Zoom in and out with ⌘ and tapping the + or - keys

  • Looking for how to search a page on Mac? You can press ⌘ + L to go to Chrome’s URL bar, which also doubles as the Google search engine — this makes searching for new pages and websites easier, as you no longer have to navigate to google.com first.

  • Need to know how to search for a word on a web page in Chrome for Mac? Try ⌘ + F.

Those are just a few of the built-in shortcuts on Chrome, but there may be times when you need more — such as a quick and easy way to take and store screenshots of your web pages. That’s where Inboard comes in handy.

Capture webpages with Inboard

Get Inboard, an app that enables you to quickly take a screenshot of any part of a webpage as well as organizes screenshots for you.

Inboard is an app that lets you quickly take a screenshot of the full page or just a specific part, then save it to a moodboard among your other favorite images for inspiration. It’s like Pinterest but on your desktop, and it can even hook into your Dribble account to measure likes.

To take screenshots with Inboard:

  1. Go to the app’s icon in menu bar and select Capture Screenshot or Capture Web Page

  2. For webpages, Inboard will ask you to install a browser extension

  3. Once you have the extension, simply click it on any website to produce a full screenshot

Another tip for making the most out of Chrome is managing your privacy and security better — using a password manager.

Secrets is an app that manages all of your passwords in one place. Using industry-standard PGP encryption, you can store, view, and update all of your passwords without worrying about being hacked or compromised. It syncs with all of your devices, and even manages credit card and other information — without handing it all over to Google.

Google Chrome Macbook Pro Download

Now that you know how to download Chrome on Mac and some of the reasons it’s so popular — you’re ready to go. To really make the most out of Chrome though, you’ll want to explore Endurance, Inboard, and Secrets. Best of all, you can do so for free with a 7-day trial on Setapp, a subscription service for Mac that has over 150 exceptionally useful apps to enrich your digital life.

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Chrome App For Macbook Pro





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