Google’s Chrome is one of the most popular web browsers around because it offers a host of appealing features, but that doesn’t make it perfect, so the latest update is very welcome.
One of the most irritating things about Chrome is its tendency to eat up memory, particularly if you’re a user with a fondness for keeping multiple tabs open.
Even if you didn’t have any other app running on your computer, opening up one tab too many on a low memory device is enough to make Chrome turn around and eat itself, freezing everything in its desperate hunger for RAM.
Fortunately, in the upcoming Chrome version 55, there will be some big improvements that should see RAM consumption drop dramatically.
Smooth surfing
This is because the new version of Chrome will utilize the V8 Javascript Engine which, according to a post on the engine’s official blog, has “significantly reduced the memory footprint of several websites that were identified as representative of modern web development patterns."
The Chrome update that will use this engine is already being tested by the V8 Javascript team and they've found that it can reduce memory consumption by as much as 35 to 50% compared to Chrome 53.
The improvements in speed and performance this will bring about will vary from website to website, but in testing it’s been found that there are significant improvements on websites such as The New York Times and Twitter.
Chrome 55 is expected to go live in early December, something those who do all of their holiday shopping online across multiple tabs might be glad to hear.
