Chrome update makes browser 30% faster on high-end devices, but with a catch

Google has released a new version of the Chrome browser. The latest update will bring big speed improvements to the app, but only for high-end devices.

Today, the Chrome team announced in a blog that the latest version of the Chrome browser has been optimized for speed and efficiency. “With the latest release of Chrome, we went deep under the hood of Chrome’s engine to look for every opportunity to increase the speed and efficiency, from improved caching to better memory management.”

As Google points out, Chrome on Android has always been optimized to have a small footprint. But since the Android ecosystem is so diverse — some devices have higher level capabilities than others — the Chrome team decided to create a version meant specifically for high-end devices. This version is designed to maximize performance, prioritizing speed over size.

In order to accomplish this feat, Google “targeted optimizations for the highly used JS ‘Object.prototype.toString’ and ‘Array.prototype.join’functions’.” The team also created specialized fast paths for parsing to ‘innerHTML’. In addition, they found an opportunity to save memory in both V8 and Oilpan with pointer compression.

After running the browser through Apple’s Speedometer 2.1 benchmark, the company states, “the improved features and efficient pointer compression collectively gave us a 10% increase” over three months. According to Google, this version of the browser is now 30% faster when running on compatible devices. Of course, the app file will also take up more space on your phone as a trade-off.

What do you think? Are you fine with having more internal storage occupied for a faster Chrome experience? Let us know in the comments.