Download Google Chrome 87.0.4280.66

Google has released version 87 of its Chrome web browser. Google Chrome is available for Windows, Linux and macOS. There are also versions for Android and iOS, but they follow a slightly different release schedule. Version 87 includes improvements that should ensure better performance and battery life. The main changes made in version 87, in addition to the usual bug and security fixes, are listed below for you.

Faster to start, faster to load, and way more battery life

This month’s update represents the largest gain in Chrome performance in years, thanks to many under the hood improvements. Here’s what’s starting to roll out today:

• Chrome now prioritizes your active tabs vs. everything that’s open—reducing CPU usage by up to 5x and extending battery life by up to 1.25 hours (based on our internal benchmarks).
• Chrome now starts up to 25 percent faster, loads pages up to 7 percent faster, and does all of this using less power and RAM than before.
• Chrome on Android now loads pages near instantaneously when you navigate backward and forward, making these common tasks super fast.

Tabs: pin ’em, group ’em, and now search ’em

Many people use tabs to organize their stuff online—from read-worthy articles, to sources of inspiration, to everyday to-do’s. This range of utility is why you can pin tabs (for those go-to pages), send tabs to your other devices and even group tabs in Chrome. This month we’re adding tab search to the toolbox.

You’ll now be able to see a list of your open tabs—regardless of the window they’re in—then quickly type to find the one you need. It’s search … for your tabs! The feature is coming first to Chromebooks, then to other desktop platforms soon.

Taking action directly from the address bar

The address bar is one of those multi-sport athletes in Chrome: you can type a search, a URL, or just tap on a suggestion, and it gets you where you’d like to go. In fact, we call it the “omnibox” inside of Google (#TheMoreYouKnow).

In this release, we’re expanding what you can do in the address bar with Chrome Actions—a faster way to get things done with just a few keystrokes. For example: when you type “edit passwords,” or “delete history,” you can now take action directly from the bar. Our first set of actions—available initially on desktop—focuses on privacy and security, so you can increase your peace of mind in a few clicks.

A way to pick up where you left off

You know when you find that delicious recipe online, then you can’t find it again when it’s time to cook dinner? We’ve heard similar stories from lots of people, for lots of different scenarios.

To help you jump back into activities like planning a meal, researching a holiday gift, or winding down with a video, we’ll soon add cards to your new tab page in Chrome. Clicking on them will take you to recently-visited and related content on the web, and save you time in the process

We’re starting with a few experiments in areas like cooking and shopping, and we plan to add entertainment early next year. This is a definitely a new type of experience in Chrome, so we welcome your feedback.

Tab throttling and Occlusion Tracking

Knowing what tabs you’re using helps Chrome manage your computer’s resources more efficiently to get things done. We’ve made significant improvements by preventing background tabs from waking up your CPU too often, and no longer rendering tabs that you can’t see.

We investigated how background tabs use system resources and found that JavaScript Timers represent >40% of the work in background tabs. Reducing their impact on CPU and power is important to make the browser more efficient. Starting in M87, we’re throttling JavaScript timer wake-ups in background tabs to once per minute. This reduces CPU usage by up to 5x, and extends battery life up to 1.25 hours in our internal testing. We’ve done this without sacrificing the background features that users care about, like playing music and getting notifications.

Next, we’re bringing Occlusion Tracking–which was previously added to Chrome OS and Mac–to Windows, which allows Chrome to know which windows and tabs are actually visible to you. With this information, Chrome can optimize resources for the tabs you are using, not the ones you’ve minimized, making Chrome up to 25% faster to start up and 7% faster to load pages, all while using less memory.

These updates will be gradually rolling out in M87 and our next release, M88.

Back/forward cache

How many times have you visited a website and clicked a link to go to another page, only to realize it’s not what you wanted and click the back button? On mobile devices, this happens a lot: 1 in 5 navigations are a back/forward navigation. This is where a back/forward cache shines! It’s a browser optimization which enables instant back and forward navigations. In Chrome 87, our back/forward cache will make 20% of those back/forward navigations instant, with plans to increase this to 50% through further improvements and developer outreach in the near future. Here’s how it works:

Back/forward cache is one of our long wished-for feature requests in Chrome and now with Chrome 87 we will gradually launch it to Chrome for Android users. Head over to this technical article to learn more about how we added back/forward cache within Chrome’s multi-process architecture and if you’re a web developer, learn how to make the most of the back/forward cache on your website.