PALO ALTO, Calif., June 14 (UPI) -- Google's beloved Internet browser is about to get a Mac-friendly makeover, addressing a number of concerns raised by Apple users over the years. Google's Chrome is one of the most popular Internet browsers, and for good reason. It's simple and intuitive, yet powerful and adaptable. But it's not perfect. All that Internet-browsing muscle takes up processing space and eats up battery life.
Safari, Apple's own browser, is much more efficient on Macs. But now Google has plans to close the gap.
Senior Chrome engineer Peter Kasting recently announced that forthcoming Chrome updates will boost the browser's efficiency by tweaking the way it renders background tabs (the pages that remain open, but which users aren't currently looking at).
"Before: Renderers for background tabs had the same priority as for foreground tabs," Kasting explained in a post. "Now: Renderers for background tabs get a lower priority, reducing idle wakeups on various perf test, in some cases by significant amounts (e.g. 50% on one test)."
There's no official timetable for the release of the improvements, but the updates are expected to go live in the coming months. Kasting said engineers at Google will also be working to improve Chrome's RAM usage.
"The Chrome team has no intention of sitting idly by (pun intended) when our users are suffering," Kasting insisted. "You should expect us to continually improve in this area."
Last week, Chrome was updated to improve battery life by programming the browser pause unnecessary Flash components.
Poster Comment:
Anyone find Chrome better than Firefox on WindowsXP?