Download Chrome For Windows 10
For quite some time, Google Chrome has had a reputation: great browser, terrible performance. In particular, if you're a laptop user and typically keep more than a few tabs open, expect hits to not only overall speed, but also battery life.
Google has acknowledged this in the past, and in fact promised to make reducing power usage a 'top priority for Chrome in 2017,' according to Chrome Product Manager Rachel Popkin.
I just bought a Surface 2 Laptop with Windows 10 and I am unable to download google chrome on my PC. I save the file from the internet and when I try to open it a message comes up saying my Laptop.
Sure enough, the team is making progress: Chrome 57, which is now available, includes a new tab-throttling method designed to reduce background-tab power consumption.
According to the Chromium Blog, background tabs (meaning the ones you're not currently using) consume a third of Chrome's power usage. In version 57, 'Chrome will throttle individual background tabs by limiting the timer fire rate for background tabs [that are] using excessive power.'
Mo' better battery life
That's a little bit of geek-speak for 'better battery life.' How much better? 'We've found that this throttling mechanism leads to 25 percent fewer busy background tabs,' Alexander Timin, software engineer, noted on Google's Chromium blog. While that doesn't directly translate to battery numbers, it does translate to improvement.
Which is an ongoing goal, Timin said: 'Chrome will continue to take steps in this direction to prolong users' battery life.'
To update Chrome or see if your version of Chrome has been updated, click the Menu button (the icon with the three vertical dots), then click Help > About Google Chrome. On my laptop, this caused Chrome to install version 57.
What are your thoughts on Chrome's effort to improve performance? Enough to win you back if you've switched to another browser? Too little, too late?
Want to turn any old computer into a Chromebook? Google doesn’t provide official builds of Chrome OS for anything but official Chromebooks, but there are ways you can install the open-source Chromium OS software or a similar operating system.
These are all easy to play with, so you can run them entirely from a USB drive to try them out. Installing them on your computer is optional.
Should You Really Do This?
RELATED:The Best Chromebooks You Can Buy, 2017 Edition
The Chrome OS software is made for Chromebooks. Chromebooks are designed to be simple, lightweight, and get updates directly from Google. Chromebooks aren’t just about Chrome OS—they’re about the total package of a computer with a simple operating system. It’s also possible that not all your computer’s hardware will work perfectly with the below operating systems, while Chromebook hardware will definitely work perfectly with Chrome OS.
But you may want to get a browser-focused operating system on some old PC hardware you have running around—perhaps it used to run Windows XP and you’d rather have a more secure environment. Here are some ways you can do this.
Chromium OS (or Neverware CloudReady)
Google’s Chrome OS is built on an open-source project named Chromium OS. Google doesn’t offer builds of Chromium OS you can install yourself, but Neverware is a company that takes this open-source code and creates Neverware CloudReady. CloudReady is basically just Chromium OS with a few additional management features and mainstream hardware support, and Neverware sells it directly to schools and businesses that want to run Chrome OS on their existing PCs.
Neverware also offers a free version of CloudReady for home users. It’s basically just Chromium OS modified to work on existing PCs. As it’s Chromium OS-based, you won’t get a few extra features Google adds to Chrome OS, like the ability to run Android apps. Certain multimedia and DRM features may also not work on some websites.
While this isn’t the official version of Chrome OS produced by Google, it’s better and more well-supported than previous solutions created by enthusiasts. It even automatically updates to the newest builds of CloudReady offered by Neverware, although these tend to lag behind the latest versions of Chrome OS as Neverware has to customize them.
Download Chrome Browser For My Laptop
Neverware maintains a list of officially supported devices that have been certified to run with CloudReady. It doesn’t matter if your computer doesn’t appear on this list—there’s a good chance it will work alright, too. But there’s no guarantee everything will work perfectly, as there is with a Chromebook designed for Chrome OS.
RELATED:How to Install Chrome OS from a USB Drive and Run It on Any PC
You’ll probably want to try Neverware CloudReady before installing it on a computer. All you need is either an 8 GB or 16 GB USB drive and an existing computer with Google Chrome installed. Follow our guide to creating a CloudReady USB drive and booting it in a live environment.
Install Google Chrome For Laptops
Give Neverware a try and, if you like it and it works well on your computer, you can install it on your computer by booting it up, clicking the tray at the bottom-right corner of the screen, and selecting “install CloudReady”. Consult the official Neverware CloudReady installation guide for more details.
Alternatively: Try a Lightweight Linux Desktop
Google officially supports Chrome on Linux. Any lightweight Linux distribution can work well, providing a minimal desktop where you can run Chrome—or another browser, like Firefox. Rather than attempting to install the open source version of Chrome OS or a Linux distribution designed to look like Chrome OS, you can just install a Linux distribution with a lightweight desktop environment—or any desktop environment, really—and use Chrome on that.
RELATED:The Best Linux Distributions for Beginners
For example, Lubuntu is a great option if you’re looking for a lightweight Linux desktop that will run well on an older computer. However, any desktop will work. Consult our guide to the best Linux distributions for beginners to choose one that works for you.
Linux distributions make a great choice if you’re just looking for a basic desktop environment to browse on. They’re also a great way to upgrade any old computers you have that may be running Windows XP or Windows Vista, giving them a modern operating system with security updates and an up-to-date browser for free. You can even watch Netflix in Chrome on Linux now. There are no dirty hacks required—it just works.
Once you’ve chosen a Linux distribution, it’s as easy to try as Neverware CloudReady. Create a bootable USB drive for your Linux distribution, boot from that USB drive, and you can try the Linux environment without tampering with your computer’s software. If you decide you want to install it on your computer, you can do that right from the live environment.
Note that you may need to disable Secure Boot to boot some Linux distributions on modern PCs.
Of course, there’s no turning any old computer into a Chromebook. They won’t get Chrome OS updates straight from Google, and they won’t be optimized to boot as quickly. If you’re using a laptop, that laptop won’t necessarily offer the battery life a Chromebook does, either. But these are the best ways to approximate the experience, if you’re looking for something similar.
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