Google Chrome 89: Keep’s Mac cooler and save memory on Windows

Google has revealed the performance improvements it made with Chrome 89, the latest version of its browser published earlier this month.

Whether you’re practicing the browser on Windows, macOS, or Android, Google tells the browser should use fewer resources, launch quicker, and appear more responsive to use.

There’s no notice of any developments specifically for users on iOS.

The specific benefits vary by OS. Across platforms, Google announces Chrome is ready to develop as much as 100MiB (or over 20 percent on some sites) by using foreground tab memory more efficiently. On macOS, it’s preserving up to 8 percent of its memory usage based on how it manages background tabs (something Chrome already does on other platforms).

Google says specific changes on macOS have helped the browser’s Energy Impact score by as much as 65 percent, “keeping your Mac cooler and those fans quiet.”

On Windows and Android, the browser is also doing a more superior memory allocator beyond more areas to reduce memory usage and improve browser responsiveness.

On Windows, Google announces it recognizes “significant memory” savings of up to 22 percent in the “browser process,” 8 percent in the renderer, 3 percent in the GPU, and that overall browser responsiveness is increased by up to 9 percent.

Google Chrome 87 update in 2020

The update describes the most significant increase in Chrome performance in years,” Matt Waddell, Chrome’s director of product, wrote in a blog post. Sounds pretty interesting on the surface, no? Waddell announces a slew of under-the-hood modifications and optimizations that have led to boosts to Chrome on several fronts.

The beginning has to do with tabs. Chrome now will prioritize your present tab over the others in the background, “reducing CPU mode by up to 5x and increasing battery life by up to 1.25 hours (based on our internal benchmarks).” Google goes into more comprehensive detail on just what it’s doing to hold tabs in check (hint: it includes throttling JavaScript) at the Chromium blog. “We’ve done this without losing the background features that users care about, like playing music and receiving notifications.”

But even opening Chrome should appear faster. The browser now launches 25 percent faster, hopefully to where you’ll see the difference. It loads pages up to 7 percent more quickly “and does all of this working less power and RAM than before.”

Google is also joining tab search, which is precisely what it sounds like and could be a boon for those of us buried beneath an avalanche of them.

“You’ll now get to see a list of your open tabs despite the window they’re in, then you can type to find what you need.” This feature is a new one on Chromebooks first and then extending to various desktop versions of Google Chrome.

The address bar is arising a bit more practical with something Google calls Chrome Actions, “a more durable way to get things done with just a few keystrokes.”

For example: when you transcribe “edit passwords” or “delete history,” you can now take action straight from the address bar. Our first set of activities, available initially on desktop, focuses on privacy and security so that you can increase just in few clicks.

Together, all these elements sum up to a meaningful update for the world’s most popular and best web browser.

And they obtain on the very day that Apple is doing lauded for its new M1 Mac computers’ speed and performance.

Speaking of which, Chrome for macOS also introduced a new icon that’s more fit for the latest Big Sur release.