Google Outlines Performance Enhancements Coming to Chrome for Mac

While Google Chrome is a great browser, many have criticized it for being a resource hog -- sucking up processing power, memory, and battery life. These issues are especially true on Mac OS X when compared to Safari.

Today, Google's software engineer Peter Kasting, has announced that his team is working on several under-the-hood enhancements that should address some of the performance issues Mac users are experiencing. For instance, one change made includes tweaks to the way tabs are rendered in the background. Below is an outline of all the fixes that should make their way to Chrome users soon:

http://crbug.com/460102

Before: Renderers for background tabs had the same priority as for foreground tabs.
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).

http://crbug.com/485371

Before: On a Google search results page, using Safari's user agent to get the same content that Safari would, Chrome incurs ~390 wakes over 30s and 0.3% CPU usage vs. Safari’s 120 wakes over 30s and 0.1% CPU usage.
Now: 66% reduction in both timer firings and CPU use. Chrome is now incurring ~120 wakes over 30s and 0.1% CPU use, on par with Safari.

http://crbug.com/489936

Before: On capitalone.com, Chromium incurs ~1010 wakeups over 30s vs. Safari's ~490 wakes.
Now: ~30% reduction in timer firings. Chrome is now incurring ~721 wakeups over 30s.

http://crbug.com/493350

Before: On amazon.com, Chromium incurs 768 wakups over 30s and consumes ~0.7% CPU vs. Safari's 312 wakes over 30s and ~0.1% CPU.
Now: ~59% reduction in timer firings and ~70% reduction in CPU use. Chrome is now incurring ~316 wakeups over 30s, and 0.2% CPU use, on par with Safari at 312 wakes, and 0.1% CPU use.

Kasting also noted that the Chrome Team will "continually improve" in this area.

Which browser do you use on Mac? Has Safari 8 switched you away from Chrome?