Google is rolling out Chrome 87, an update for the Chrome browser that ‘represents the largest gain in Chrome performance in years’ due to many under-the-hood improvements. Notably, this is the last Chrome release of 2020.
Performance Improvements
According to Google, Chrome 87 starts up to 25 percent faster and loads pages up to 7 percent faster. The company is also claiming that the browser now uses less power and RAM than before, which is good news for anyone using Chrome browser.
To achieve this, the browser now prioritizes active tabs over other background tabs. Behind the scenes, the company is throttling JavaScript timer wake-ups in background tabs to once per minute. Based on internal testing results, the CPU usage gets reduced by up to 5x and it extends battery life up to 1.25 hours. However, the change won’t affect high-priority tasks like playing music and receiving notifications.
Tab Search
Building on its previous efforts to enhance the tabs experience such as tab pinning and tab grouping, Chrome 87 now lets you search tabs. You can easily see a list of your open tabs and type to find the one you’re looking for. According to Google, the feature is coming first to Chromebooks, followed by other desktop platforms soon.
Chrome Actions
To help users do more from the address bar, Google has launched Chrome Actions. The feature, initially available on desktop, lets you take quick actions such as deleting history or editing passwords right from the address bar. To access these actions, all you have to do is type relevant keywords. Take a look at the supported commands below:
- Clear Browsing Data – type ‘delete history’, ‘clear cache ‘ or ‘wipe cookies’
- Manage Payment Methods – type ‘edit credit card’ or ‘update card info’
- Open Incognito Window – type ‘launch incognito mode‘ or ‘incognito’
- Manage Passwords – type ‘edit passwords’ or ‘update credentials’
- Update Chrome – type ‘update browser’ or ‘update google chrome’
- Translate Page – type ‘ translate this’ or ‘ translate this page’
New Tab Page Cards
As spotted before, Google is adding cards on the new tab page to show you recently-visited and related content on the web. It will primarily show cooking and shopping-related content, but Google clarifies these are free product listings and not ads.
Alongside all these changes, Google is also improving Chrome on Android by adding support for back/forward cache. With this addition, Google says switching backward and forward during navigation will become at least 20 percent faster.
