How to Download and Install Google Chrome How to download and install Chrome for Mac Download and install Google Chrome Searches related to install chrome on mac. On OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Safari is far too outdated and is considered very unsecure, Google has, also, dropped support for Google Chrome on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard making the last Chrome version for 10.6 also risky and unsecure, now. Minimum Mac OS X for latest Chrome web browser is now OS X 10.7 Lion at later.
Safari is the default browser in macOS and has been ever since Apple first built its own web browser. Before that, for a while, it was Internet Explorer — but the less said about that the better, and before that it was Netscape Navigator. Remember that? Safari is a perfectly good web browser and offers most of the features of its competitor web browsers, including autofill for forms and credit card details, secure password storage, and the ability to request that websites do not track you. Given Apple’s recent focus on privacy, it’s not unlikely that Safari will soon be the best option all round for Mac users who want to surf the net securely and without handing over personal data. However, there are perfectly good reasons why you might want to use a different browser. Performance is one of them.
While Safari is pretty speedy, for some users in some circumstances it’s slower than Chrome or Firefox. Or it might be that there are extensions you need that are only available in Chrome, or perhaps a website you use regularly doesn’t work properly in Safari. What is a default web browser?
Before we get to how to change your default web browser, it’s worth considering what a default web browser is and does. Put simply, it’s the web browser that opens a link when you click on it in an email or other document. If you use Spotlight and click on a result from the web, it will open in your default browser.
In fact any task that opens a URL will be performed in that web browser. It doesn’t mean, of course, that you can’t use other browsers to surf the net. So, if you just need to access specific sites in Chrome or Firefox, you don’t need to change your default browser. Even if Safari is you default browser, you can open any link in another browser, by holding down the Control key when you click on it and selecting Copy Link, then paste it in the address bar of any browser you like. How to set the default browser in macOS El Capitan or later, and OS X Yosemite Apple changed the way you set the default browser in OS X Yosemite and it has remained the same since then. Previously, as you’ll see below, you had to open Safari to, say, make Google Chrome the default browser.
As Apple realised, eventually, that’s plain daft. Here’s how to do it now. Click on the Apple menu and select System Preferences.
Choose the General tab. Just over half way down, there’s a menu next to “Default web browser.” Click on it and choose the browser you want to set as the default. How to change the default web browser in OS X Mavericks or earlier. Launch Safari. Click on the Safari menu and choose Preferences.
Click on the General tab. Choose the web browser you want to use as the default by clicking on the menu next to Default web browser. Close Preferences.
Quit Safari. Other methods for changing your default web browser Every browser wants to be the default — it’s the most obvious way to increase user numbers. And so whenever you open a browser that’s not the default, you’ll see a pop up window asking if you want to set it as your browser of choice.
If you choose so, it will change the System Preferences setting and position itself as the default. If you refuse and later decide you want to make it the default after all, that’s easy too. Here’s how you do it in some of the more popular browsers for macOS. Chrome. To make Chrome the default browser, first of all launch it. Click on the Chrome menu and select Preferences.
In the web page that opens, scroll down until you see Default Browser. Click Make Default. Firefox. Launch Firefox.
In the Firefox menu, click Preferences. Make sure General is selected in the left hand sidebar (it should be blue). At the top of the page, you should see “General” and underneath it, a message saying that Firefox isn’t currently your default browser. To the right of that, click Make Defaul. Opera. Launch Opera.
Click on the Opera menu and select Preferences. In the web page that opens, make sure Basic is selected on the left hand side. Click on Make Opera my default browser. Vivaldi. Launch Vivaldi. Click the Vivaldi menu and choose Preferences. Make sure Startup is selected in the left hand sidebar.
Click on Set as Default. 3 tips to make your browser fast Whichever web browser you use, there are some tips you should remember in order to keep it running optimally. Always use the most up-to-date version. Safari updates with macOS system updates, so make sure you install system updates when they become available. Most browsers automatically update themselves when you close and reopen them. But if you keep them open permanently, they won’t update.
So the easiest way to keep them updated is to quit them every now and again. Don’t keep lots of tabs open at once. Open tabs, even those that are hidden, consume RAM, processor cycles, and energy.
The more you have open, the slower your Mac will become. So close tabs you no longer need.
![Chrome Chrome](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125405141/878377990.jpg)
Keep your Mac clean of junk Unnecessary files, including cache, cookies, language files and old updates can slow down your whole system, as they take more and more space. The simplest way to get rid of them is to use a dedicated app like. To quickly delete useless files on your Mac, follow the steps:. Launch CleanMyMac X.
Click Smart Scan. As you can see, setting your default web browser in macOS is very easy — choosing which browser to use maybe less so. Whichever browser you choose, you should maintain it to keep it running optimally, can help do that easily. These might also interest you:.
Advertisement Chrome is, for many people, the first thing installed on a new MacBook. It makes sense: in its early days Chrome gained a reputation for being lightweight and fast. It was better than Safari and Firefox, people said.
And it was true, at the time. It’s not the case anymore. In fact, I’d argue that you shouldn’t use Chrome on a MacBook if you can avoid it. Over the years Chrome became a bloated program that doesn’t integrate well with OS X, and it happened so slowly most Chrome users haven’t noticed.
Here are ten reasons every Mac-loving Chrome user should consider switching. Chrome Drains Your MacBook Battery Battery life has been a huge feature for Apple in recent releases of OS X. Mavericks brought energy impact measuring tools to the operating system, which you can find by clicking your battery icon right now.
If you’ve got Chrome running, Chrome will show up here. It’s been said a thousand times, but it’s worth saying again: if battery life is important to you, avoid using Chrome. Even on 4-year-old MacBooks, replacing Chrome with Safari can give you an extra hour of battery life in some cases. Google is reportedly working on the issue, and has made progress, but the job is far from finished. And you don’t have to take my word for it: open up the Activity Monitor on your Mac, then head to the “Energy” section. Open some tabs in Chrome and the same ones in another browser – Chrome will almost always use more energy for the same job. It’s particularly true for Netflix, if you want a test case.
Your Fans Will Occasionally Sound Like Jet Engines Watching an HD video in Chrome will spin up the fans on this Macbook something crazy. Nice and cool. — Chris Ashby (2pix)?? (@2pixelwide) The low battery life isn’t for no reason: it’s because Chrome uses more CPU power to accomplish the same thing as Safari. Partially this is because of inefficiency, and partially its because Chrome’s priority is speed.
Either way, I’ve personally heard way more of my fan while using Chrome than while not. And I’m not alone. It’s kind of nuts that Chrome sets off the fans in my 2015 Macbook Pro when like Final Cut and Adobe Premier don’t — Larry Madill (@larrymadill) 3.
Chrome Does Things Its Own Way, Not the Mac Way I ranted about this extensively when I talked about the reasons I hate Chrome, but it’s worth stating again: ChromeOS is the worst thing that ever happened to Chrome on other platforms. Don’t get me wrong, ChromeOS is a great operating system, but the volume of stuff Chrome takes along with it to other platforms makes it a worse browser on the Mac.
It simply doesn’t integrate with the OS well. Case in point: notifications. Apple introduced a system-wide notifications system with Mountain Lion way back in 2012. This means notifications all look the same, never overlap each other, and can be browsed all in one archive if you miss something.
Chrome could use this system, but doesn’t: it uses a completely separate notification system. These don’t play nicely with other notifications, meaning they’ll cover up those ones. They also don’t show up in the system-wide notification system, so you can’t reference them later there. There are plenty of other differences. Most Mac apps close instantly when you hit CMD-Q; Chrome makes you hold the combo for a while. Most Mac apps have their own preferences window; Chrome uses a website in a tab for that. Whether you like these changes or not, you’ve got to admit Chrome just doesn’t work the way Mac apps do.
And if you’re using a Mac, it must at least be in part because you like the way Mac apps work. Chrome Can Slow Down Your Entire Mac I can’t remember the last time a non-technical person asked me why their Mac was slow and it wasn’t a result of dozens of open Chrome tabs. — Anoop Ranganath (@anoopr).
It’s a related point, I realize, but it’s worth stating: Chrome uses a lot of CPU power. Part of this is the priority on speed, part of it is inefficient programming, but shut down Chrome on many Macs and everything feels faster. Not just browsing: everything. The Confusing Extension/App/Whatever Ecosystem There’s a folder Chrome put on my computer that looks like this: You might like this feature, but it seems out of place to me. I have some questions for Google:. Why?. No seriously: why?
When I click these, they only open in Chrome. How is this different from bookmarks? Why do they need their own folder?. Does this make more sense if you use “actual” Chrome apps?
Why are the default “apps” offered just bookmarks to Google products? Which insist on showing up when I use Spotlight?. Why is there three of the same app so many times? Did I accidentally create some user profiles? Why don’t user profiles have their own folders?. Seriously, I just checked, I don’t have any other profiles, what gives?. I tried deleting the folder; it came back.
Umm It’s related to the point above, sure, but it’s just another way in which Chrome seems to do its own thing regardless of what’s normal on the Mac ecosystem. Why not populate a folder with “Apps” that are mostly bookmarks, all of which require Chrome to open? It’s the kind of thing you expect from Windows crapware, not a leading Mac browser.
Google Doesn’t Need Help Watching You You might not know it while reading this article, but I’m actually a longtime Google fan. Getting access to Gmail during the invite-only beta was a college triumph of mine, and I’m pretty sure I had a Google sign on my dorm room wall back in 2004. I’ve worked extensively for companies that do little more than set up Google Apps for Business, and I think that Chromebooks are an excellent device for the education market. Having said that, over the years I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with how much information Google has about me. My Gmail account is an archive of my communications, for example, and search is basically an extension of my conciousness.
It’s part of why I DuckDuckGo might be the privacy-focused search engine you've been looking for. But do its features hold up? We look at DuckDuckGo vs. Google to find out. and haven’t looked back. I was just tired of feeling like my internal monologue was being watched (and monetized).
Using Chrome to search with DuckDuckGo feels weird, though. Are the auto-suggestions still coming from Google?
Is Google still using my Chrome account to track me in some way? It sounds paranoid, post-Snowden being paranoid isn’t necessarily being irrational. I feel more comfortable just not using Chrome. Mac Support Feels Like an Afterthought I’ve written more than once how I feel like It took someone outside Google hacking away at CSS to finally offer a decent Hangouts experience on desktops and laptops – and you can give it a shot right now if you're a Chrome user., and to me the lack of a dedicated app is the reason for that. Put simply: if you don’t use Chrome, there isn’t a dedicated app. If you do use Chrome, it doesn’t fit in.
Here’s the Hangouts extension covering my dock, something no other app on the Mac does: The app version behaves weirdly too: it shows up on every desktop by default, something no other app does. The fact that there is both an extension and an app called “Hangouts” that serve the same function but behave completely differently is bad enough, but the way neither behaves like a proper Mac app makes it so much worse.
Oh, and the notifications for Hangouts: they don’t integrate with the OS X notification center. Why would they?
No Support For Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion Mountain Lion came out in 2012, not that long ago, but if you’re still using that operating system Chrome updates are being cut off. Google announced the change back in November. Sure, you can update your OS free of charge, but many people don’t want to for a variety of reasons, including older computers that don’t support the latest version of OS X. Safari Has Gotten Really Good For a long time, the collective response to the above points was “Sure, but nothing is better”. Which was fair back in 2012, but Chrome or Safari?
It's not a clear-cut answer. Truth is, brand loyalty is counter-productive. You should revisit your options regularly to see if maybe something better exists. And none of the above criticisms apply to Apple’s browser, which is well-integrated on the Mac. Seriously, if you haven’t tried this browser out for a while you don’t know what you’re missing. Even the extension ecosystem has come a long way: the most common tools are already waiting for you.
It’ll be an adjustment, but you’ll never look back. Safari Integrates Better With Apple Products If you’re all-in with the Apple platform, Safari is the better choice. All the little things just integrate better: your passwords, for example, are managed by Apple’s system-wide tool and synced using iCloud. Same goes for your Bookmarks. Continuity only works with Safari. I could go on, but you get the idea: Apple’s browser is better integrated with Apple’s ecosystem. If you care about that, Safari is the clear choice.
Reasonable People Can Disagree Whatever your take, I’d love to have a chat with you about all this. Let me know what browser you use on your Mac, and why. Or get into your own Chrome complaints, if you like. Maybe you absolutely love Chrome on your Macbook – fair enough. If you use Android, for example, or a Chromebook, the full browser syncing might be a killer app for you. If you dislike both Safari and Chrome, you can always look to our list of It is not that Safari is a bad browser or that it has a limited feature set - you may just want a different focus, or major updates more than once a year.
And note that it’s entirely possible to Is it possible to run the flagship Microsoft browser on an OSX machine? Read on to find out if you absolutely need to. Explore more about:,.