Google Details Speed Improvements to Chrome for Android

Google Chrome 89 for Android brings performance improvements that were detailed by the search giant on Thursday, despite the version’s rollout starting earlier this week. Google claims that the latest version of Chrome for Android will use fewer resources, launch quicker, and boot up 13 percent faster than before. Google has employed the use of ‘Freeze-Dried Tabs’, which it claim help you load tabs from an earlier session quicker. The company has also incorporated PartitionAlloc on Android as well as 64-bit Windows, optimised for low allocation latency, space efficiency, and security. Improvements for the macOS build were also detailed.

In a post on the Chromium blog, Google claims that thanks to improvements in packaging and runtime of the Chrome for Android app, the latest build now has 7.5 perfect faster startup time, up to 2 percent faster page load time, 5 percent improved memory usage, and fewer crashes due to resource exhaustion.

Google says Chrome 89 for Android’s new Freeze-Dried Tabs help improve startup times by 13 percent, storing lightweight versions of older tabs that are shown at startup while the actual page loads up in the background.

For latest smartphones running Android 10 with 8GB of RAM or more, Google has “rebuilt Chrome as a 64-bit binary, giving you a more stable Chrome that is up to 8.5 percent faster to load pages and 28 percent smoother when it comes to scrolling and input latency,” said Mark Chang, Chrome Product Manager at Google.

Using PartitionAlloc, Chrome 89 for Android and 64-bit Windows are seeing significant memory savings. Google details that Chrome 89 for Windows has memory savings improvements of up to 22 percent for the browser process, 8 percent for the renderer, rendering, and 3 percent GPU improvements. The company is touting improved memory use in the new version of Chrome across platforms as well, “by discarding memory that the foreground tab is not actively using, such as big images you’ve scrolled off screen.” On macOS, the latest build has a smaller memory footprint for background tabs, while the company is also touting an improved Apple Energy Impact score.

In other Google-related news, Chrome for Android with version 86 has also received a new feature that lets users preview a page before opening it in the same or new tab. This is in addition to another new feature that lets users group similar tabs into one. Google earlier this week announced that Chrome 89 will enable Web sharing on desktops, redesigned discover feed, customisable feed, and many other features.

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