Chrome has received several updates ever the past year to cut down on memory usage, but the ubiquitous browser is still notorious for being somewhat of a resource hog. Well, more enhancements are on the way, with Google Chrome 55 bringing new changes that dramatically reduce the amount of RAM used by up to 50%.
The claimed improvements come courtesy of an updated JavaScript V8 engine, which reduces the heap size and zone memory. The improvements are said to benefit not only low-memory devices but beefier mobile and desktop machines too — although the impact of the update will be less noticeable if you already have loads of RAM available. The company also made improvements to Chrome’s ‘garbage collector’ feature that cleans out unused memory.
The reported improvements are in comparison to the current version of Chrome (33) and were measured by visiting websites like Imgur, Reddit, Twitter, The New York Times and YouTube. The Chromium team is hoping to release more memory-saving updates in the future, specifically focusing on low-end devices with less than 1 GB of memory.
The stable build of Chrome 55 is scheduled to go live on December 6th, there’s always the Chrome Beta channel if you want access to the improvements a few weeks earlier.
