Thanks to a new Sparkplug compiler and short built-in calls

May 28, 2021 09:33 GMT  ·  By

Just like Microsoft, Google has been working around the clock on improving the performance of Google Chrome because let’s be honest about it, despite being the world’s number one browser, there’s a lot this application needs to refine about its resource usage.

One main area of focus for the search company has been the performance on PCs, with the recently released version 91 allegedly bringing substantial improvements in this regard.

In a post on the Chromium blog, Google explains that the latest Chrome update comes with a new Sparkplug compiler and short builtin calls, which together allowed for a performance boost of no less than 23 percent.

Already available in Chrome 91

This is impressive, to say the least, especially because the performance increase is likely to be more noticeable on slower computers with old hardware.

“An important component of delivering a fast browser is fast JavaScript execution. In Chrome, that job is done by the V8 engine which executes over 78 years worth of JavaScript code on a daily basis,” Thomas Nattestad, Chrome Product Manager, explains in a post.

“In M91 Chrome is now up to 23% faster with the launch of a new Sparkplug compiler and short built-in calls, saving over 17 years of our users' CPU time each day! Sparkplug is a new JavaScript compiler that fills the gap between needing to start executing quickly and optimizing the code for maximum performance. Short builtin calls optimize where in memory we put generated code to avoid indirect jumps when calling functions.”

Microsoft, on the other hand, claims it managed to make its Chromium browser faster by implementing sleeping tabs, a new feature that automatically puts to sleep tabs that you no longer need, and therefore making sure they are no longer allocated resources that could be used elsewhere.