Unfortunately Chrome is absolutely terrible not just for power usage but also for RAM usage. For some reason Chrome loves memory, it gobbles it up. Safari is much better about it.
I switched from Chrome back to Safari recently and while it took some time adjusting, I have been seeing almost 2 - 3 hours longer battery life, and I have had way less issues with "beachballing".
I can't believe I have to repeat this, in 2016: software workload naturally expands to use all available resources. Period. Nobody likes doing "memory optimization" work when developing.
I regularly have 50 tabs open on Chrome. Switched to Safari a month ago hoping it would leave me more memory.
Turns out my machine suddenly started beachballing, swapping like mad (battery usage up) and crashing. Switching back to Chrome completely fixed that problem.
Unfortunately Chrome is absolutely terrible not just for power usage but also for RAM usage. For some reason Chrome loves memory, it gobbles it up. Safari is much better about it.
I switched from Chrome back to Safari recently and while it took some time adjusting, I have been seeing almost 2 - 3 hours longer battery life, and I have had way less issues with "beachballing".