Google Chrome for Apple Silicon M1 Macs arriving on Wednesday

AppleInsider

Google on Tuesday rolled out a new version of the Chrome web browser with support for Apple's new M1-powered Macs, though distribution has been paused due to unforeseen issues.

Initially released earlier in the day, Chrome 87 delivers native support for new Apple silicon Macs like the M1-powered MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. The rollout was halted after users reported unexpected crash events while browsing the web.

The root of the problem was not revealed, though Google engineers discovered a workaround that involves adding Chrome as an approved application under Bluetooth privacy in Mac's System Preferences. Alternatively, users can uninstall Chrome, visit google.com/chrome and download the "Mac with Intel chip" option, which will run in Rosetta 2.

Google's M1-compatible Chrome iteration arrived alongside a version for x86 machines that includes a host of performance and efficiency improvements. While the two variants include an identical feature set, an M1-native version should, in theory, run more smoothly and afford faster processing speeds on Apple silicon Macs.

According to Chrome product manager Mark Chang, Google will push out a patched revision of the browser tomorrow.

When the M1 Mac version does launch, users visiting Chrome's download page will be met with a prompt to download the app for a "Mac with Intel chip" or a "Mac with Apple chip."

sflocal

Let’s see how much resources this version consumes.

philboogie

Good to see yet another developer releasing updated software for the M1. But why would anyone prefer Chrome over Safari? (<serious question)

saldog

But why would anyone prefer Chrome over Safari?

My company has over 200K users and we use Google Suite/Workspace for document creation/management. It works in Safari, but there are many small things that do not work or do not work quite right. We must use Chrome, unfortunately. I use Safari for everything else, but Chrome for work.

killroy

philboogie said:

Good to see yet another developer releasing updated software for the M1. But why would anyone prefer Chrome over Safari? (<serious question)

Chrome had the bad episode of bricking Macs by putting files were they don't belong. Hope they do better testing this time.

edited November 2020

mattinoz

philboogie said:

Good to see yet another developer releasing updated software for the M1. But why would anyone prefer Chrome over Safari? (<serious question)

Work-life balance.

Safari is me personal browser - others in rotation for work even on works computer and I say in rotation as online tools we use suddenly stop working on one so you switch to another then use it as your "work" browser.

sarkany

philboogie said:

Good to see yet another developer releasing updated software for the M1. But why would anyone prefer Chrome over Safari? (<serious question)

Safari sucks and Chrome is a resource hog, so I use FireFox.

focher

Why isn’t this released as a Universal Binary? Lame to require the user to select the architecture.

riverko

philboogie said:

Good to see yet another developer releasing updated software for the M1. But why would anyone prefer Chrome over Safari? (<serious question)

I use Chrome for some websites that behave strangly in Safari... like one VOD service that in Safari activates random language version of subtitles without possibility to switch them off...  It works perfectly fine with Chrome, so easiest way as back up browser. Also when i need to access some websites/services that are not available in my region...

apple_bar

...it will only require 7.99GB of the M1 memory. 

octomonkey

Perhaps I have missed it...  but  there been any information on the relative speed of Rosetta 2 applications?  Intel on Intel vs. Intel on M1 vs M1 on M1?

I ask since the post mentions using the Mac with Intel chip running with Rosetta 2.  It would be interesting to see browser speed test results for the various permutations.

octomonkey

philboogie said:

Good to see yet another developer releasing updated software for the M1. But why would anyone prefer Chrome over Safari? (<serious question)

My kids have to use Chrome for school, but other than that, we steer away from the Google-verse as much as possible.

pascalxx

OctoMonkey said:

Perhaps I have missed it...  but  there been any information on the relative speed of Rosetta 2 applications?  Intel on Intel vs. Intel on M1 vs M1 on M1?

I ask since the post mentions using the Mac with Intel chip running with Rosetta 2.  It would be interesting to see browser speed test results for the various permutations.

Anandtech has posted some benchmarks on this, with performance drops in the range of 5 to 50 percent, depending on the complexity of the code. (even with the performance drops, M1 performed better than many of the Intel Macs) I don’t recall that they looked at browsers specifically.

wood1208

Wish Apple makes changes to Safari to page tabs and new tab creation lay out. Picks up the way pages tabs are represented and new page add tab from Chrome and Firefox.

octomonkey

Pascalxx said:

OctoMonkey said:

Perhaps I have missed it...  but  there been any information on the relative speed of Rosetta 2 applications?  Intel on Intel vs. Intel on M1 vs M1 on M1?

I ask since the post mentions using the Mac with Intel chip running with Rosetta 2.  It would be interesting to see browser speed test results for the various permutations.

Anandtech has posted some benchmarks on this, with performance drops in the range of 5 to 50 percent, depending on the complexity of the code. (even with the performance drops, M1 performed better than many of the Intel Macs) I don’t recall that they looked at browsers specifically.

Took a gander...  Quite interesting and looks surprisingly good, but still not real-world stuff.  That said, benchmarks are a reasonable starting point.  Given the extremely limited memory, I wonder how this will fare in memory hog applications.  CPU and system I/O bandwidth has increased to a degree where paging in/out has less noticeable impact than it used to so perhaps it will still perform well.

wood1208

Sarkany said:

philboogie said:

Good to see yet another developer releasing updated software for the M1. But why would anyone prefer Chrome over Safari? (<serious question)

Safari sucks and Chrome is a resource hog, so I use FireFox.

Well, I like to use Safari but on Safari the way pages tabs are presented, lay out on screen and new page add selection on tab are less efficient than Chrome and Firefox. Just make it like them and Safari for me default browser on MAC and IOS.
 Moreover, on IOS remove page x selection on top left is difficult to always touch right instead the page becomes active. Always hit or miss.

jdb8167

OctoMonkey said:

Pascalxx said:

OctoMonkey said:

Perhaps I have missed it...  but  there been any information on the relative speed of Rosetta 2 applications?  Intel on Intel vs. Intel on M1 vs M1 on M1?

I ask since the post mentions using the Mac with Intel chip running with Rosetta 2.  It would be interesting to see browser speed test results for the various permutations.

Anandtech has posted some benchmarks on this, with performance drops in the range of 5 to 50 percent, depending on the complexity of the code. (even with the performance drops, M1 performed better than many of the Intel Macs) I don’t recall that they looked at browsers specifically.

Took a gander...  Quite interesting and looks surprisingly good, but still not real-world stuff.  That said, benchmarks are a reasonable starting point.  Given the extremely limited memory, I wonder how this will fare in memory hog applications.  CPU and system I/O bandwidth has increased to a degree where paging in/out has less noticeable impact than it used to so perhaps it will still perform well.

I haven't run any Rosetta 2 benchmarks but I'm running all the same software as I did on my 2108 13" MacBook Pro and haven't noticed any problems or slowdowns. Many of the apps I use are already updated for the M1 but certainly not all. Generally, I haven't even found the need to check. Everything just seems to work.