One of the many good things about a Mac is that it comes with a powerful browser: Safari. Given that you have a supported Mac, Safari is a great shot, but it doesn’t always cut it for Pros. In these situations, you may have to consider Google Chrome, which is available for Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android. But how do you download and install Google Chrome on a Mac? I’ll tell you in this guide.
Installing Google Chrome on a Mac
You can install Google Chrome on a Mac by downloading the installation file from the official website. The installation process does not take more than a few minutes, and you can set Google Chrome as the default browser from Settings or macOS System Preferences.
How to Download Chrome
To get started, you have to download Google Chrome on your Mac. I presume that you are new to Mac, and I would like to recommend the easiest method: download the app from the official website. The steps you’ve to follow are:
- Open Safari on your Mac and search for Google Chrome
- Click the link to the page to Download Google Chrome
- By default, the website will detect that you are browsing the page from a Mac and show the macOS version of Chrome.
- If it does not, you can select the Mac version manually.
- Once you see this link, click it to initiate the download
- Now, wait for Safari to complete the download.
At the time of writing, the downloaded file is of 210MB. You can refer to this site to see whether you got the official version of the file.
Install Chrome on Mac
Here are the simple steps you can follow to install Google Chrome on Mac.
- You first have to open the DMG file you downloaded via Safari
- Doing so will open a window like the one you can see below
- Click and drag the Google Chrome icon to the Applications folder shortcut
- Wait for Finder to complete the transfer process. It may take up to a few minutes
- You can now close the window.
Once you have closed the installation window, you can open Google Chrome for the first time. To do this,
- You can open Google Chrome from the Launchpad menu
- Search for Google Chrome using Spotlight
- Open Google Chrome from the Applications folder
All these methods should work fine. When you open Google Chrome for the first time, your Mac will verify the file and ask whether you want to open it (since you downloaded it from the internet.) Click Open if you’re going to continue using Google Chrome.
How to Make Default Browser Google Chrome
When you usually install Google Chrome, Safari will remain the default browser for your Mac. That is, Mac will launch Safari whenever you click a link. To avoid this situation and use Chrome as the default browser, you have to set it up.
Steps to set Chrome as the default browser on Mac:
You have two ways to set Google Chrome as the default browser on your Mac.
- Using Chrome settings to set as default
When you set up Google Chrome and open it for the first time, it will ask you whether you want to set it as the default browser. You can check this option to make things easier.
But, if you forgot to check this option, you could use Google Chrome Settings to set it as the default browser. You can find this option by going to Settings from the three-dot menu on the top-right part of the Chrome window.
Configuring default browser settings in macOS System Preferences
If you cannot find this option, you can configure the default web browser from macOS System Preferences as well. To do this,
- Open System Preferences
- Go to Desktop & Dock, and scroll down
- From the Default Web Browser, choose Google Chrome
Benefits of setting Chrome as the default browser
The most significant benefit is that you can have a seamless browsing experience. When you click on a link from any app, it will be opened in Google Chrome instead of Safari.
You also get some convenient features like Handoff on Mac. That is, when you open a link on Google Chrome on your Mac, you can resume browsing from an iPhone—even if you use Safari as the default browser on your iPhone.
Benefits of Using Chrome
Why would you use Google Chrome instead of Safari in the first place? Well, here are some benefits of using Chrome on your Mac.
Speed and Performance
While not as powerful as Safari, Google Chrome offers impressive speed and performance on your Mac. You will notice this speed, mainly if you frequently use Google services, such as Gmail and Google Drive. Although Google Chrome may take up a lot of RAM, it is quick in terms of page loading.
Extensions and Customizability
Compared to Safari, Google Chrome supports more extensions and customizability. You can choose between thousands of Google Chrome extensions, which turn your web browser into a sort of OS. The functionalities you get via these extensions are practically endless.
Synchronization Across Devices
As I said, Google Chrome is available for Android, iOS, Windows, and other platforms. So, given that Safari is unavailable on Android and Windows, you can benefit from cross-device synchronization. You also get some convenient cross-platform continuity features.
You can set up these features when you open Google Chrome for the first time. However, most cross-device features require you to sign into a Google account.
Keyboard Shortcuts For Chrome
Google Chrome is also known for its wider support for keyboard shortcuts. Learning these shortcuts will help you improve your efficiency, especially if you spend a lot of time on the web browser. Some common Chrome shortcuts are:
- Command + T: Open a new tab
- Command + W: Close the current tab
- Command + Shift + T: Reopen the closed tab
- Command + 1 or Command +2: Shift to the 1st and 2nd tabs
- Command + F: Search within the page
- Command + L: Type in the address bar
- Command + +/-: Zoom in or zoom out
You can also set up custom keyboard shortcuts using dedicated macOS apps. However, the built-in keyboard shortcuts are sufficient for most browsing and tab management needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
An official version of Google Chrome is available for Mac. You can also get the beta version of Chrome for your Mac device. A separate version, namely Chromium, is also available for Mac.
If you can, you should update Chrome on an old Mac by going to the three-dot menu > Settings > About Chrome. This will initiate the update process. Alternatively, you can uninstall Google Chrome and install it again.
Conclusion
As you can see, installing Google Chrome on your Mac and using it as the default browser offers a number of advantages. All these advantages aside, Google Chrome is a promising browser. While it is not my favorite option, I believe Chrome is better than Safari on multiple fronts.
However, considering how RAM-hungry Chrome is, you might want to avoid running other browsers when Chrome is active. On the bright side, if your Mac has 16GB of Unified Memory or higher, you don’t have to worry about this at all.
