Google Reveals How Chrome Just Got Even Faster
▼ Summary
– Google has released a new blog post detailing performance improvements in Chrome, following similar updates a year ago.
– Both Google and Microsoft have used the Speedometer 3.0 benchmark to highlight browser speed gains in Chrome and Edge.
– Google improved memory management and caching by redesigning memory layouts for components like DOM, CSS, and layout.
– Blink, Chromium’s rendering engine, now optimizes CPU cache usage and shifts memory handling from malloc to Oilpan (Blink’s garbage collector).
– Enhancements include faster string handling with rapidhash and improved caching for tasks like CSS style computation.
Google’s latest Chrome update delivers noticeable speed boosts through smarter memory handling and rendering optimizations. The company recently detailed significant under-the-hood improvements that make the browser faster and more efficient, building on performance gains announced last year. These enhancements focus on core areas like memory management, caching strategies, and rendering processes.
Memory management received particular attention, with Google’s engineers redesigning how Chrome handles data structures for DOM, CSS, layout, and painting operations. The Blink rendering engine now minimizes unnecessary processing cycles, allowing better utilization of CPU caches. A major shift involves moving DOM memory handling entirely to Oilpan, Blink’s garbage collector, instead of mixing malloc allocations with garbage collection.
String processing within the renderer also saw upgrades, including switching to the rapidhash algorithm for improved performance. For computationally intensive tasks like CSS style calculations, Google enhanced caching mechanisms to increase successful cache retrievals while reducing misses. These fundamental optimizations mirror similar efforts by other browser developers, Microsoft recently highlighted Edge’s own speed improvements using the same Speedometer 3.0 benchmark.
The changes reflect broader industry trends toward optimizing software efficiency at the architectural level. Google’s approach demonstrates how targeted improvements in memory allocation and data structure handling can yield measurable performance benefits without requiring hardware upgrades. As browsers continue evolving into complex application platforms, such optimizations become increasingly critical for maintaining responsive user experiences.
(Source: Neowin)
