Google Chrome 55 Will Have Memory-Optimization Features for Faster Browsing

[MacRumors]

Google has announced that an update coming to its website browser, Chrome, will include an upgraded JavaScript engine to aid in reducing the memory usage on websites that were programmed using JavaScript (via CNET).

Planned for launch on December 6, Chrome 55 will see performance improvements predominantly if a device doesn't have much memory to start with (such as low-cost smartphones), and if a user runs Chrome with multiple tabs or other apps open at the same time.

Google's V8 JavaScript engine team said it has "significantly reduced the memory footprint of several websites," helping to improve performance on the browser. These websites include The New York Times, Reddit, YouTube, and others, and were all picked to gauge Chrome's specific enhanced performance features. The team discovered that Chrome used a total of 50 percent less of a device's RAM on average in comparison to Chrome 53, which updated in September to emphasize HTML5 content over Adobe Flash.

Most noticeably, the average V8 heap memory consumption of the mobile New York Times benchmark reduced by about 66%. Overall, we observed a 50% reduction of average V8 heap size on this set of benchmarks.

Another optimization introduced recently not only reduces memory on low-memory devices but beefier mobile and desktop machines. Reducing the V8 heap page size from 1M to 512KB results in a smaller memory footprint when not many live objects are present and lower overall memory fragmentation up to 2x. It also allows V8 to perform more compaction work since smaller work chunks allow more work to be done in parallel by the memory compaction threads.

As it moves forward with more updates to the web browsing software, the focus for the Chrome team appears to be on entry-level devices that have between 512MB and 1GB of RAM.

Still, users who are conscious about performance issues with multiple tabs and apps open -- or who own a system with a lot of memory -- are likely to see less of a difference with Chrome 55. Chrome is available to download for iOS, Mac, Windows, and Linux systems, and users should see the new performance-enhanced update on December 6.

Article Link: Google Chrome 55 Will Have Memory-Optimization Features for Faster Browsing

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Is that memory optimization really resulting in "faster browsing" though? Seems it would result in a more compact footprint but require cycles for all the garbage collection they are doing so result in slower performance overall.

 

[Luscious]

Why in the world would anyone use Chrome? When Google produces something "free" your privacy is what's actually for sale.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

How about a complete rewrite.

 

[bibigon]

Why in the world would anyone use Chrome? When Google produces something "free" your privacy is what's actually for sale.

I don't value my privacy very much. Neither do most people. If Google wants to know what I'm doing on the internet, sure, go nuts.

If anything, I'll benefit from it, since I'll get smarter targeted ads as result. They're going to serve me ads anyway, so it may as well be ones relevant to me.

 

[maflynn]

I'm hoping its not a resource hog, I largely don't use it on my Mac because of that

 

[iamgalt]

I never use Chrome on my macs, just my windows machine at work. And since none of my personal information is on that machine, and I'm not browsing shady sites there, I'm not as concerned about privacy. I'll be looking forward to faster browsing (if that is even the result as "thisisnotmyname" has suggested it may not be).

 

[69Mustang]

V8 Javascript engine. I see what they did there.

Any improvements to Chrome are appreciated. It's my main browser across multiple platforms.

 

[newyorksole]

I use Chrome strictly for "adult" websites hahah. Safari for everything else.

 

[macduke]

Chrome is available to download for iOS, Mac, Windows, and Linux systems, and users should see the new performance-enhanced update on December 6.

I'm not sure why the article mentioned iOS and this new update in the same breath. Chrome on iOS uses WKWebView and therefore won't get the new performance enhancements unless Apple is actively working to incorporate the same changes into WebKit.

 

[Sasparilla]

I just use it as my dedicated Facebook / LinkedIn browser for the few times I have to use those - so the tracking is stopped there. Use Safari and Firefox for normal browsing.

Its a decent enough browser, but again, with Google you are the product and the records are not deleted. And with the U.S. government accessing anything these big companies aggregate - who's possibly looking at that product becomes distasteful.

 

[GeneralChang]

So I guess I'll have to find another analogy to help my non-techy friends know what having a memory leak is like...

 

[Kajje]

I need Chrome for some apps that have very poor performance in Firefox. But it's eating away battery life so hard it becomes scary.

 

[coolfactor]

Is that memory optimization really resulting in "faster browsing" though? Seems it would result in a more compact footprint but require cycles for all the garbage collection they are doing so result in slower performance overall.

I'm a web-app developer and I've spent the past 15 years building and maintaining a framework, basically an operating system, upon which I build apps and websites. A strong focus on getting memory usage down, and releasing memory as soon as possible, has resulted in lightning fast performance. It really does make a difference. I don't think enough developers spend the time to truly optimize for memory usage. They just continually making use of the raising ceiling as the "minimum" RAM increases each year or three.

The headline of this article is a bit confusing. Is Chrome getting "memory-optimization features" — features that optimize memory — or receiving "memory optimizations" — refactored to use less memory? Those are two slightly different things. Adding features to optimize memory is not the same thing as improving the existing code to reduce memory usage. It sounds like the latter to me, which would make the headline inaccurate.

 

[jonnysods]

I use chrome for gmail and light browsing, but for all my web design and other tasks I use safari. I probably should use Firefox but safari performs well for me and has decent dev tools.

 

[bladerunner2000]

Long, LONG overdue. Chrome is awesome though, I love signing in via my Gmail account and having all my bookmarks, passwords, extensions etc all brought in automatically and remembered across devices.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Why in the world would anyone use Chrome? When Google produces something "free" your privacy is what's actually for sale.

Although this is true for a lot of Google's offerings, I don't think this is entirely true about Chrome.

Google wants you to use Chrome so that Google's content loads and runs faster, and so Google can have a say in web protocols and make it so that they can make do with less bandwidth and overhead. That means they don't need to spend as much money on server farms.

Google sees Chrome more as a way of saving money on the other things they do than as a way of collecting information to sell.
[doublepost=1476115658][/doublepost]

I don't value my privacy very much. Neither do most people. If Google wants to know what I'm doing on the internet, sure, go nuts.

If anything, I'll benefit from it, since I'll get smarter targeted ads as result. They're going to serve me ads anyway, so it may as well be ones relevant to me.

You know how you get physical and digital spam and unsolicited phone calls? You can thank Google for collecting your info and selling it to whoever is willing to pay for it.

Google has a lot more info than just that on you though. They know where you live and work. They know your make, model, year, color, and license plate for your car. They know how much you make. They know when you work.

Someone buys that data from them, and they're now all set to plan how to rob your house or kidnap your children.

Those are just quick examples of the info Google has on you. What I've talked about nicely fits on a single index card. They have 600 pages of info on you. Identity theft is trivial with that much info.

 

[merkinmuffley]

I use Chrome on all my Macs, works great. This might help, will wait and see.

 

[rock6079]

I still find chrome to be a complete disaster for battery life.

 

[AllieNeko]

I still find chrome to be a complete disaster for battery life.

Mostly, this is because Chrome is fed video formats on YouTube that are not hardware accelerated. Google wants to push open source, so this is unlikely to change. Use Safari for YouTube

 

[Tjex]

Although this is true for a lot of Google's offerings, I don't think this is entirely true about Chrome.

Google wants you to use Chrome so that Google's content loads and runs faster, and so Google can have a say in web protocols and make it so that they can make do with less bandwidth and overhead. That means they don't need to spend as much money on server farms.

Google sees Chrome more as a way of saving money on the other things they do than as a way of collecting information to sell.
[doublepost=1476115658][/doublepost]

You know how you get physical and digital spam and unsolicited phone calls? You can thank Google for collecting your info and selling it to whoever is willing to pay for it.

Google has a lot more info than just that on you though. They know where you live and work. They know your make, model, year, color, and license plate for your car. They know how much you make. They know when you work.

Someone buys that data from them, and they're now all set to plan how to rob your house or kidnap your children.

Those are just quick examples of the info Google has on you. What I've talked about nicely fits on a single index card. They have 600 pages of info on you. Identity theft is trivial with that much info.

You do realise that Google doesn't share your personal info right? The fact that you still beleive this is mind boggling.

 

[69Mustang]

You know how you get physical and digital spam and unsolicited phone calls? You can thank Google for collecting your info and selling it to whoever is willing to pay for it.

Google has a lot more info than just that on you though. They know where you live and work. They know your make, model, year, color, and license plate for your car. They know how much you make. They know when you work.

Someone buys that data from them, and they're now all set to plan how to rob your house or kidnap your children.

Those are just quick examples of the info Google has on you. What I've talked about nicely fits on a single index card. They have 600 pages of info on you. Identity theft is trivial with that much info.

What the, WHAT? Is this some type of weird, super crazy example of Poe's Law? If you're serious it's definitely the most out there thing I've seen you post on this forum. Were you hacked? If so, damn Russians.

 

[JGRE]

I don't value my privacy very much. Neither do most people. If Google wants to know what I'm doing on the internet, sure, go nuts.

If anything, I'll benefit from it, since I'll get smarter targeted ads as result. They're going to serve me ads anyway, so it may as well be ones relevant to me.

Really, you want more adds, next to this on TV, Radio, sport-field, computer, phone, down town, everywhere else you look etc? I am trying to avoid getting more adds pushed trough my throat.

 

[efktd]

 

[69Mustang]

Really, you want more adds, next to this on TV, Radio, sport-field, computer, phone, down town, everywhere else you look etc? I am trying to avoid getting more adds pushed trough my throat.

I think you may be missing bibigon's point. They aren't advocating more ads. They're saying they prefer relevant ads to random ads placed on pages. Contrary to what some believe, processes like limit ad tracking don't lower the number of ads you see. They only lower the relevancy based on your history. If you want fewer ads an ad blocker is your easiest avenue.