It’s fixed by closing tabs in both Chrome and Safari. The problem isn’t fixed by closing tabs in Chrome. I’ve discovered that in some cases this can bring the MacBook Air almost to its knees, slowing it down enough that I have to stop using it temporarily. And I typically stream cable TV news in one of the tabs in either Safari or Chrome. I typically have about a dozen tabs open in Chrome and multiple tabs open in Safari – by necessity (i.e., I don’t leave tabs open unless I’m using them). And invariably my MacBook Air slows down. So much so that I get warnings at the top of Safari about web pages using too much memory.
Yes, Safari tends to be more efficient on the Mac but even Safari gets sluggish when I have more than a few tabs open and simultaneously have tabs open in Chrome.