Chrome gets speed boost

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 22nd May 2009
Comments (11) Stumble
Chrome gets speed boost

The latest build of Chrome boosts the performance of the V8 JavaScript engine by a not-inconsiderable 30 percent.

JavaScript performance appears to be the new battleground in the war of the web browsers, and Google is determined not to be left behind – and has boosted the performance of Chrome by 30 percent.

In an announcement on the Official Google Blog yesterday, the company revealed that the latest build of its open-source browser Chrome improves performance on JavaScript-heavy webpages by a not-inconsiderable 30 percent.

Scoring 2714 on the V8 Benchmark Suite compared to the previous stable version's 1645 reveals that whatever the company has done under the hood is working – doubly impressive when you remember that Chrome was already leading the SunSpider benchmark tests carried out by ZDNet at the start of the year.

The latest stable build doesn't just improve on the performance of the V8 JavaScript engine, however: the team have been working on adding the most requested improvements to the browser. First and foremost is something users have been finding the most surprising omission from Chrome's feature set: form autofill. For anyone who enjoys their privacy – or frequently visits a site they'd rather people didn't know about – the ability to remove an entry from the most recently visited sites list which appears when a new tab is opened will be welcomed.

Another feature which has been lacking in all but the development build of Chrome is full screen mode, which is now available to all via the F11 key. All this comes along with over 300 fixes for bugs and flaws within the application.

Chrome users will be automatically upgraded to the latest stable build over the next few days, but if you can't wait that long it's available for download immediately.

Are there any features still missing from Chrome that are preventing you from switching, or is Google rapidly producing the best browser on the market? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Quote Mentai 22nd May 2009, 13:31
Yay! This version works in the Windows 7 RC. I couldn't get the previous one to function.
Quote hodgy100 22nd May 2009, 13:48
awesome ill have to download if it works in Win 7 :D
Quote wafflesomd 22nd May 2009, 13:49
I love chrome, but I can't use it. For one reason.

Let's say that I open three tabs. Sometimes, one tab will decide to take forever to connect for no reason. None of the other tabs will finish loading until the slow tab finally connects.

Not sure why it does this.
Quote p3n 22nd May 2009, 14:42
Quote:
Originally Posted by wafflesomd
I love chrome, but I can't use it. For one reason.

Let's say that I open three tabs. Sometimes, one tab will decide to take forever to connect for no reason. None of the other tabs will finish loading until the slow tab finally connects.

Not sure why it does this.

Surely this is flash or someting as each chrome tab is supposed to be a seperate process?
Quote wafflesomd 22nd May 2009, 20:40
I'm not sure what the cause of it is, but as a result, I can't use chrome.
Quote smc8788 22nd May 2009, 20:48
I suffer the same problem sometimes, but I thought it was a result of my flaky internet connection. It never occurred to me it might be the browser, I'll have to go back to using Firefox for a while to see if that's any better and the browser is the problem, because it's damn annoying when it does happen.
Quote Vigilante 22nd May 2009, 22:02
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mentai
Yay! This version works in the Windows 7 RC. I couldn't get the previous one to function.

The Stable releases are actually released very slowly considering the development speed of the Chromium team. Ive been able to use Chrome on Windows 7 since build 6801 back last august - you just needed to set it to the Dev branch (prebeta) using the Channel Changer. I use the pre-hourly builds from Chromium, and I'm currently using 2.0.182.0 (16780).

I love chrome, and now that "real" addon support is being implemented, it should be able to satisfy even some of the more ardent Firefox users. Or maybe not ;)
Quote Mach1.9pants 23rd May 2009, 01:12
I am giving it a go but it is still missing many FF features. The add blocking is still not as good as ad block.
The main reason I have kept away is that on one of the forums I frequent a lot when replying (and you delete and paste etc in the reply) the text becomes corrupt. Not what is posted but what it displays that you have written before you submit... makes it totally un-usable.
Quote alpaca 23rd May 2009, 15:00
i tried using chrome for a wile, but it kept crashing on me. and it took ages to load on my netbook. i recently switched to K-meleon. so far i like the browser. it is fast and simple. anyone with experience?
Quote <A88> 24th May 2009, 09:23
Hasn't crashed yet, which is something I found the previous version did fairly consistently on specific sites. Not really noticed a massive speed increase yet but seems decent enough to keep it as my primary browser.
Quote Saivert 25th May 2009, 00:29
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vigilante

I love chrome, and now that "real" addon support is being implemented, it should be able to satisfy even some of the more ardent Firefox users. Or maybe not ;)

Meanwhile Firefox is improving as well. And Firefox 3.5 beta 4 is really fast. So I don't think those "ardent" Firefox users will change to Chrome any time soon.
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