Google Chrome loads pages faster after update 87 and uses less memory
The Google Chrome browser will receive an update on Tuesday with which the program should start up faster and open web pages faster. At the same time, energy and memory consumption is lower than before.
Chrome director Matt Waddell says in a blog post that it is the “ biggest speed gain in years, ” with Chrome booting 87 to 25 percent faster and loading pages 7 percent faster. The browser also prioritizes the tabs that are ‘active’. That way, the CPU consumption should be five times less and the battery life of a mobile device should be improved by 1.25 hours. Google does not provide details on under what circumstances users can expect such battery life gains.
According to a Chromium blog post, Google has looked, among other things, at how Chrome handles tabs that are not actively used. Such tabs should make less use of the CPU with version 87. In addition, Chrome should no longer render such tabs. The Chromium message further describes that JavaScript Timers are responsible for 40 percent of the computing power required for the inactive tabs. Google has limited these JavaScript timer wake-ups in version 87 to once per minute, which should explain the mentioned CPU consumption and battery life gains. At the same time, functions such as playing music and receiving notifications should not be limited by this change. With the update, Chrome on Windows also knows which tabs are visible to the user, thanks to the arrival of Occlusion Tracking.
Chrome 87 also brings a back / forward cache to the Android version of Chrome. This feature keeps the previous page in a phone’s cache. That way, a user can return to a previous page more quickly. In this way, switching to the previous page should be 20 percent faster than in previous versions. Later, Google wants to improve this to fifty percent. Google states that one in five navigations on the Android version is such a back / forward navigation.
Google is also announcing a number of new features that will come to the different Chrome versions later. For example, there is a search function that allows users to search for an open tab. Another function is called Chrome Actions, which should make it possible to start certain actions in the address bar. Google cites the example of changing a password or deleting browser history. The last feature is cards, a collection of web pages related to what the user has recently visited in Chrome. According to Google, it could be about buying a chair or looking for a cooking recipe. These features will appear in Chrome in the coming weeks.
The cards in Google Chrome