How Google made Chrome a speed demon on Android

Google Chrome is the most popular search engine on the internet, and this is in no small part due to its speed. It’s fast enough to outrun the competition from other companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla. Today, the company unveiled how it made Chrome superfast on Android devices.

How Google made Chrome superfast on Android

Speed is one thing that people tend to overlook when talking about browsers. We typically attribute speed to our connection, but a sluggish browser can ruin your experience even if you’re using blazing-fast 5G. It’s the browser’s duty to display the webpage, so the overall speed depends on how quickly the browser can do that.

Google explained what it’s doing behind the scenes to grease Chrome’s wheels and make it one of the best browsers on Android.

Optimizations

Starting off with the optimization, Google stated that it used to send the same build of Chrome to all Android devices coming out, whether they be flagship or budget. This means that some of the less-powerful devices would struggle, as they’re using the latest and greatest build.

However, with Chrome version M113, Google started distributing a separate higher-performance build of the browser to more powerful devices. That build targets ARM64 rather than ARM32. This means that lower-powered smartphones could arrive with a less demanding build of the browser, resulting in more consistent performance across devices.

If you’re using a $200 phone, then your phone’s performance won’t impact your browsing experience. The higher-powered version uses C++ code optimized for speed rather than size since flagship devices aren’t hindered by disk size or RAM.

Other optimizations include tweaking inlining thresholds, applying profile-guided optimization techniques, and improving cross-function code. All of these optimizations help make Chrome a much more streamlined browser.

Rendering engines

Chrome uses JavaScript and web rendering engines called V8 and Blink. The company stated that it’s been optimizing and tweaking these over the years. Each individual update has a small impact, but Google says that they add up.

The company stated that it now uses an optimized fast-path HTML phaser. Along with that, the V8 engine has a new compiler tier called Sparkplug. It can generate non-optimized code very quickly. It also launched its Maglev mid-tier compiler.

These are just a few of the many updates that Google brought to its rendering engines. These all help boost Chrome’s speed.

Scheduling

Google worked closely with partners such as Qualcomm to improve Chrome’s scheduling policies. In fact, using the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Chrome saw a 60% – 80% increase in speed, according to Speedometer 3.0. This means that more powerful devices will see a pretty significant speed boost.

All of these optimizations come together to ensure that Chrome remains one of the fastest browsers that you can use today.