chrome browser for mac free download How to Install Chrome for Mac. This article explains how to download and install Chrome for Mac as well as the benefits of using Chrome on a Mac. How to Download and Install Chrome for Mac. Every Mac comes with Apple's Safari web browser installed on it, and lots of people use it. Safari is far from the only browser you can use on a Mac, however. While the built-in option has benefits, you may want a different program, like Google Chrome. Here's how to put Google's browser on your Mac. Go to the download page for Chrome on the Mac you want to install it on. The site detects that you're using a Mac and automatically suggests the right version for you. Click Download Chrome for Mac . The installer program for Chrome downloads to your designated Downloads folder. Open the Downloads folder and double-click the file called googlechrome.dmg to launch the installer. Drag the Chrome icon to the Application folder icon. The installer will copy Chrome to your computer. Before you start using your new browser, clean up the installer files. If you don't, those files will use up space on your hard drive unnecessarily. Open a Finder window and click the arrow next to Google Chrome in the sidebar. Return to the Downloads folder and drag googlechrome.dmg to the trash. Go to your Applications folder and double-click Google Chrome to start using your new web browser. If you expect to use it often, drag it to the Dock for easy access. The Benefits of Using Google Chrome on a Mac. Some of the most common and compelling reasons people prefer to use Chrome include: Chrome ties into the Google ecosystem : You can sign in to your Google account using Chrome and use all the services and data in your Google account, right there in your browser. If you're a heavy user of Google services, Chrome is the simplest and best-integrated way to access them. Chrome is highly compatible : Although it doesn't happen much these days, some sites won't load or function correctly in Safari. In those situations, you might have better luck with Chrome. Chrome is available on many platforms : Because it comes from Apple, Safari is available only on Macs and iOS devices (it comes installed on the iPhone and iPad, too). Apple used to offer Safari for Windows but discontinued that version in 2012. Chrome, however, runs everywhere: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Linux, and more. Chrome has a massive library of extensions : You can expand your browser's functionality by installing extensions. Safari supports extensions, too, but Chrome has a much bigger selection. With over 10,000 extensions available for Chrome, you can add a huge array of features, including ad-blocking, web developer tools, and more. Don't worry about being permanently committed to Chrome. If you use it for a while and find that it's not the right browser for you, you can always uninstall it from your Mac. Why Chrome uses so much RAM and how to make it use less. If you’ve ever used Google Chrome, you’ve probably seen your Windows PC or Mac slow down considerably. This is because Chrome is famous for using a lot of RAM. If you go to your Task Manager right now, you’ll likely see that Google Chrome is using more of your system’s RAM than any other program. Today we’re going to walk you through why that happens and then show you some tricks you can use to help cut down on Chrome’s RAM usage so that your browser and system can work efficiently. As smartphones like Android handsets and Apple iPhones and iPads work a little differently to desktop PCs, we won’t be looking at them with this article. Why does Chrome use so much of your computer’s RAM? Chrome uses RAM in just the same way as any other app, program, or piece of software. It uses your system memory to store various processes while it performs the tasks that you and the websites you visit set it. This means that if you were to open Chrome on its own it wouldn’t actually require that much RAM, not much more than other web browsers like Microsoft Edge or Mozilla Firefox anyway. It is only when you start browsing the internet that Chrome’s bumper RAM requirements quick in. Modern websites have more fluid and interactive elements than ever before, with each requiring a lot of processes and therefore a lot of memory to perform. This is then amplified when you consider how we use the internet these days. More Tabs = More RAM. We now think nothing of having a lot of websites open at the same time using Chrome tabs. The thing we don’t consider, however, is that every open Chrome Tab needs about 50MB of RAM to operate normally. Yes, that does say MB, which is so 90s I know, but look at how many Chrome tabs you have open right now. Ah, now you understand. It is easier than ever to browse multiple web pages at once and when your Chrome memory usage is going up in multiples of 50 things add up fast. How to reduce the amount of RAM the Chrome browser uses. Chrome’s experimental features. Google Chrome has a number of experimental features called Flags. These Flags might be what the Chrome team is planning to introduce with future Chrome updates, or they might just be pet projects of individual team members. Some of them have been designed to help Chrome users limit Chrome’s memory consumption. You can access the Google Chrome Flags menu by copy and pasting chrome://flags/ into Chrome’s address bar. The best Chrome Flag to help you reduce Chrome’s RAM usage is Tab Freeze . When enabled, Tab Freeze will suspend all eligible Chrome tabs that have been inactive for more than five minutes. They’ll reload when you open them again, but until that time they’ll sit dormant and won’t use any of your system’s RAM. The best flags for Google Chrome. Extensions Toolbar Manager is another Chrome Flag that you should think of installing if you have many different extensions on Chrome performing many different tasks. Extensions can be process heavy, which means the more you have the more pressure they place on your system. The thing is, however, you might not them to perform their processes all the time. Enabling the Extensions Toolbar Manager Flag will shrink all your extensions icons into a single menu. This will then make it much easier to disable them when you’re not using them so that you can use the RAM for something else. How to make Google Chrome run faster. The Chrome Task Manager. Just like Windows has one, Google Chrome has a Task Manager too. You can activate the Google Chrome Task Manager by opening Chrome and then hitting the Shift + Esc keys at the same time. Unfortunately, that hotkey only works in Windows, so if you’re using a Mac, you’ll have to go into the Window menu. Once you have the Chrome Task Manager open, you’ll be able to see each individual task that Chrome is running and shut down the ones that are hogging up all your RAM. If you have extensions that use a lot of RAM and your system is struggling, get rid of them. Another you’ll be able to do here kills any open tabs that might be using too much RAM also. Sometimes tabs might not be working exactly as they should, or the content they’re displaying may be putting excess strain on your system resources. The Task Manager will show you exactly how much system memory each tab is using and if one of them is using a lot more than the rest of them, close it. Chrome Browser Extensions. If you find that the Chrome Flags haven’t done enough and you’re still having problems even though you know how to access the Chrome Task Manager, then maybe you should head to the Chrome Web Store and think about installing some Chrome extensions that will help you manage and reduce Chrome’s RAM usage better. The Great Suspender is a fantastic Chrome plugin that will deliver effective results quickly. It works by giving you a number of options including setting time limits for how long tabs can remain inactive or unused before the extension will freeze their operation. When the tabs are frozen they’ll no longer put a strain on your system’s resources, which should see an upturn in performance, if you’re pushing your system’s limits. The tabs will appear dimmed when inactive and will then simply reload again when you open them up again. One Tab is another great Chrome extension that promises a massive 95% memory reduction against Chrome browsers that don’t have the extension installed. When activated all open tabs are shrunk down to a single tab, which then shows a list of all tabs. They’re all right there ready to go, they’re just not using all your system’s RAM anymore. Wrapping up. Now you know why Chrome uses so much RAM and how to reduce its RAM usage. It is important to note, however, that you should only really limit Chrome’s RAM usage if it is causing a problem.