Google Chrome is always one of the culprits that eat RAM, claim users. The latest technologies should work in addressing the high amounts of RAM, and CPU usage of the Chromium-based web browser.
Google has been developing multiple features that attempt to lower resource utilization of Chrome web browser. The latest technique, called ‘PartitionAlloc’, might just be one of the best solutions to lower RAM and CPU usage.
Google to introduce ‘PartitionAlloc’ within Chrome browser to fix multiple issues with browser:
Google Chrome is quite a popular web browser. It is fast, smooth, powerful, and versatile. However, it does eat a lot of RAM and CPU resources to operate reliably, complain a lot of its users.
Google is working to address this issue with its latest browser release for Mac, Windows, and Android devices. Mark Chang, Chrome Product Manager, indicated Google is using its own advanced memory allocator in the latest chrome version.
Google has reportedly optimized PartitionAlloc for low allocation latency, space efficiency, and security. It’s now used everywhere on Chrome for Android and 64-bit Windows.
Chrome 89 increases desktop memory efficiency with PartitionAlloc https://t.co/OBbXQ9tnDb by @jrssnet
— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) March 12, 2021
With PartitionAlloc, the Chrome M89 version is showing ‘significant’ memory savings on Windows – by up to 22 percent in the browser process, 8 percent in the renderer, and 3 percent in the GPU, claims Chang. He even adds the team behind Chrome has improved browser responsiveness by up to 9 percent.
Interestingly, the browser now smartly uses and discards memory. “Chrome now reclaims up to 100MiB per tab, which is more than 20 percent on some popular sites, by discarding memory that the foreground tab is not actively using, such as big images you’ve scrolled off-screen,” noted Chang.
Google Chrome browser now has a significantly reduced ‘Memory Footprint’:
Google claims it recently shrunk the memory footprint of background tabs by up to 8 percent. The browser now occupies just over 1GB on some systems. The change is visible in version 87 and above of Google Chrome.
The company has even introduced ‘Tab Throttling’. Even Microsoft Edge browser has the feature by the name of ‘Sleeping Tabs’.
Chrome for desktop is less RAM hungry with latest update thanks to PartitionAllochttps://t.co/QrX9x6EAN8 pic.twitter.com/d3varlQUPe
— Chrome Unboxed (@chromeunboxed) March 12, 2021
This feature essentially puts inactive tabs in a suspended state and extracts resources. Tab Throttling alone is responsible for a 65 percent improvement on the Apple Energy Impact score for pages in the background. As a direct impact, Apple MacBook Pro laptops should run cooler and quieter while browsing.
Over to the Android side, Google says that it is using Android App Bundles to optimize downloads on a per device level. The company is also using ‘islatedSplits’ which only allows loading of splits on demand.
Do you remember all these jokes about Chome consuming all available RAM? Looks like there's a new king. Chrome has 2x more tabs opened… pic.twitter.com/DHgpVCHQYB
— Mateusz Bochynski (@matbochynski) March 12, 2021
As a direct result of such optimizations, Google Chrome experienced fewer crashes, a 5 percent improvement in memory usage, 7.5 percent faster startup times, and up to 2 percent faster page loads, claims Google.
Incidentally, there’s a 64-Bit version of the Google Chrome web browser for Android Operating systems. This version is available for smartphones that are running Android v10 and above as well as pack more than 8 GB of RAM.
Google claims the x64 version of Chrome offers a more stable experience, with 8.5 percent faster page loading time, and 28 percent smoother scrolling and input latency.