Version 89 of Google Chrome started rolling out to users of the stable channel on March 2 and should be on most people’s machines now. The new build offers significant memory savings on Windows 64-bit platforms, thanks to increased use of Google’s PartitionAlloc memory allocator. In macOS, Chrome 89 updates itself and approaches the performance of the main versions of Windows.
Chrome on Windows
Google says that RAM usage in Windows 64-bit has dropped by up to 22% in the browser process, 8% in the renderer and 3% in the GPU. The company also claims a 9 percent reduction in latency, which means a more responsive browser. The improvements are largely due to the interception malloc() connect with PartitionAlloc.
Chrome 89 has also become significantly more aggressive in discarding unused RAM. When you scroll over features like large, off-screen images in the foreground tab, Chrome discards the memory that those features used. The change also affects background guides, resulting in savings of up to 100 MiB per guide.
Chrome on macOS
Chrome 89 on macOS is still trying to catch up, but now includes improvements to memory management in background tabs that other platforms have had for some time – Google says that means up to 8 percent RAM savings on macOS.
Tab acceleration has also been improved on macOS in version 89, with Apple’s energy impact scores up to 65% better on background tabs.
Chrome on Android
In theory, a developer only needs an APK for almost any Android device. In practice, resources tend to be very limited on mobile devices – making the concept of packages tailored to the capabilities of an individual device much more attractive than on more robust desktop or laptop systems.
Google updated the Play Store itself to allow the generation of APKs optimized for a user’s specific device and updated Chrome to take advantage of new features. Using these Android App Bundles and Isolated Splits, Chrome can be started with a significantly reduced initial code base and dynamically load more resources after the user needs them.
A new feature called Freeze-Dried Tabs further decreases the startup time. Google describes frozen tabs as lightweight versions of these tabs the size of a screenshot, but with support for scrolling, zooming and tapping links. When you open Chrome, the home screen uses frozen tabs – taking you to the browser with some interactivity up to 13% faster.
Frozen tabs, in particular, look like a big improvement over the usual mobile app practice of displaying a recent screenshot of the app while it loads, deceiving users thought the app is loading much faster and smoother than it actually did – but it offers no more real function than if the app displayed a blank screen while loading.