Google is abandoning the Chrome 89 memory saver, which “keeps your computer cooler” while browsing

The Google Chrome browser has been criticized for years for being a hog of system resources, but Chromium developers are making some strong claims about how smart the latest version is in using and freeing memory on macOS.

According to a new post on the Google Chromium blog, Chrome developers have recently managed to reduce the memory footprint of wallpapers on the Mac by up to 8%, or just over 1 GB on some systems in version 89 of the browser.

Tab limitation, which acts on pages that are not currently active, is said to have led to significant improvements by reducing JavaScript Timer revivals. Background tabs don’t wake up CPUs as often and keep battery life, and as a result, Chrome uses up to 5 times less CPU, while battery life is up to 1.25 hours longer. good, says Google.

According to the developers, since its introduction in Chrome 87 and wider release in Chrome 88, the feature has been responsible for a 65% improvement in the Chrome Energy Impact score for background pages.

The improvements are in stark contrast to recently reported independent measurements, which claimed to show that Google Chrome uses 10 times more RAM than Safari on macOS Big Sur.

The interpretation of these measurements has since been challenged, but separately Apple still claims that Safari on ‌‌macOS Big Sur‌‌ is “50% faster on average when loading frequently visited websites than Chrome”. Apple also says that Safari can stream videos up to an hour and a half longer, and can keep users normally browsing on a single upload up to an hour longer, compared to Chrome and Firefox.

Google Chrome for Mac is a free download available directly from Google’s servers. Google Chrome for iOS is a free download for iPhone and iPad available in the App Store. [Direct Link]