The Google Chrome browser is now available as an Apple M1 native application, for those of you lucky enough to have M1 Mac Mini, Macbook Air, or Macbook Pro systems. (If you've been living under a rock for the last few weeks, the M1 is Apple's newest in-house-designed ARM silicon, which the company began selling in traditional form-factor laptops and Mac Minis for the first time this week.)

1. Google Chrome M1
2. Google Chrome M1 Download

Google presents Chrome for download as either an x86_64 package or an M1 native option—which comes across as a little odd, since the M1 native version is actually a universal binary, which works on either M1 or traditional Intel Macs. Presumably, Google is pushing separate downloads due to the much smaller file size necessary for the x86_64-only package—the universal binary contains both x86_64 and ARM applications, and weighs in at 165MiB to the Intel-only package's 96MiB.

1. Nov 19, 2020 How to download the right version of Chrome. Before you can download the correct version of Chrome based on the computer you are using, you’ll need to find out some information. Although the x86 version will run on the new M1 Macs, it will also have to use Apple’s Rosetta 2 software.
2. Google has restarted the rollout of Google Chrome for the M1 powered Macs after it hit some roadblocks yesterday and had to pause it. Google Chrome on the M1 powered Macs started crashing after.
3. Nov 20, 2020 Earlier this month, Apple unveiled M1 Chip Macs touting significant performance improvement. Last week Google released a Chrome browser for Macs powered by M1 Chip. New MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini users have to download a different Chrome version. The best part is that this version of Chrome runs faster than the one on Rosetta 2.
4. Nov 19, 2020 Google presents Chrome for download as either an x8664 package or an M1 native option—which comes across as a little odd, since the M1 native version is actually a universal binary, which works on.

Nov 18, 2020 Some users are saying that their Intel Chrome is automatically updating to the Apple M1 optimized variant, which is great. However, if that’s not the case for you, you can download it. Downloading the new browser is easy and pretty much the same as it has always been when downloading Chrome on a new machine.

Performance

Google Chrome M1

In our earlier testing, we declared that the previous version of Google Chrome—which was available only as an x86_64 binary and needed to be run using Rosetta 2—was perfectly fine. That was and still is a true statement; we find it difficult to believe anyone using the non-native binary for Chrome under an M1 machine would find it 'slow.' That said, Google's newer, ARM-native .dmg is available today, and—as expected—it's significantly faster if you're doing something complicated enough in your browser to notice.

The first benchmark in our gallery above, Speedometer, is the most prosaic—the only thing it does is populate lists of menu items, over and over, using a different Web-application framework each time. This is probably the most relevant benchmark of the three for 'regular webpage,' if such a thing exists. Speedometer shows a massive advantage for M1 silicon running natively, whether Safari or Chrome; Chrome x86_64 run through Rosetta2 is inconsequentially slower than Chrome running on a brand-new HP EliteBook with Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U CPU.

Google Chrome M1 Download

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Jetstream2 is the broadest of the three benchmarks and includes workloads for data sorting, regular expression parsing, graphic ray tracing, and more. This is the closest thing to a 'traditional' outside-the-browser benchmark and is the most relevant for general Web applications of all kinds—particularly heavy office applications such as spreadsheets with tons of columns, rows, and formulae but also graphic editors with local rather than cloud processing. Chrome x86_64 under Rosetta2 takes a significant back seat to everything else here—though we want to again stress that it does not feel at all slow and would perform quite well compared to nearly any other system.

Finally, MotionMark 1.1 measures complex graphic animation techniques in-browser and nothing else. Safari enjoys an absolutely crushing advantage on this test, more than doubling even M1-native Chrome's performance. The Apple M1's GPU prowess also has an inordinate impact on these test results, with Chrome both native and x86_64 translated on the M1 outrunning Chrome on the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U powered HP EliteBook.

Chrome for Apple’s M1 Macs has been released, a specially-developed version of the browser for Apple Silicon, a day after Google had to pull down its first attempt over stability issues. Attempts to download Chrome now bring up two different options: you can either have Chrome for a Mac with an Intel chip, or Chrome for a Mac with an Apple chip.

The native app promises performance improvements, rather than relying on Apple’s Rosetta 2 emulation as the x86 Intel version would require. Apple has made some big claims about Rosetta’s capabilities – including suggestions that emulated apps can actually run faster on M1-based Macs than they do on Intel versions – but the company’s clear hope is for native software to become the norm.

Google’s Chrome team was early to that process, quietly pushing out a native M1 version of the browser yesterday. Quickly spotted by Chrome users, it ended in an aborted rollout after reports of unexpected crashes on M1-based models like the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13, and Mac mini. The Chrome team promised a second attempt today, and that’s now been launched.

Those who have one of the newest Macs, and who use Chrome, shouldn’t really see much in the way of differences beyond speed. Both versions will benefit from Google’s latest improvements in performance and memory utilization, Chrome 87 being pushed out earlier this week with some significant promises.

Chrome’s CPU usage could be cut by a fifth, Google’s team said at the time, while battery usage could see a 1.25 hour improvement. Desktop Chrome starts faster, and loads pages faster, Google promised, while new actions had been added along with improvements to how tabs can be managed.

The challenge, of course, is Safari. Apple’s browser has the benefit of its developers being in-house with the designers of Apple Silicon itself, and the Cupertino firm hasn’t been shy in promising advantages in performance and memory use when Mac owners stick with the homegrown software.