The latest version of the Google Chrome browser designed for Macs includes optimizations that are designed to preserve battery life. In a blog post shared today, Google says that with a single full charge, a 13-inch M2MacBook Pro running Chrome can be used to browse the internet for 17 hours or watch YouTube for 18 hours.
With improvements to Energy Saver mode, browsing time is extended for another 30 minutes by reducing unnecessary background tasks, and while Google uses the M2 MacBook Pro as an example, the company says that those using older Macs will also see performance gains.
To boost battery life, Google made changes that include tuning iframes to consume less energy, tweaking JavaScript timers to wake the CPU less often, streamlining data structures to optimize access, and eliminating unnecessary redraws.
Google plans to continue to optimize Energy Saver mode in the future. The Chrome browser for Macs can be downloaded from Google's website, with the 110 version released last week.
Google Maps users in the U.S. will now see the name "Lake America" instead of "Lake Ontario" for the Great Lake that straddles the New York—Ontario border.
Google said it made this change in response to the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) updating the name for "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America," following an executive order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump last week....
Wednesday August 19, 2026 12:00 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Google today said eligible college students in the United States can get a free year of Google AI Pro. Google AI Pro is normally priced at $19.99 per month, and it includes 4x higher usage limits in Gemini, access to Gemini Spark, Gemini in Google apps like Gmail and Google Docs, and 5TB of storage space.
Eligible college students outside the United States can get a free year of Google AI...
Sunday September 13, 2026 3:00 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Update 10:04 a.m.: iOS 27 is rolling out now, though it may take a bit for all users to see it, so keep checking!
Apple is about to release iOS 27, which will finally deliver more advanced Siri AI capabilities as well as a variety of other refinements, improvements, and new features to iPhones. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and Apple announced at Wednesday's iPhone event...