Google Chrome 99 landed in the Stable channel almost a week ago with a bunch of improvements for developers and consumers alike. However, one thing that Google did not highlight at the time of release was that Chrome 99 is also faster. Today, it has emphasized this in a dedicated blog post with some cheeky comparisons to Safari.
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Google has proudly claimed that Chrome on Mac is now the fastest browser ever. To prove this, it actually has the results of Apple"s own benchmarking software, Speedometer, which is used to score browser responsiveness. Chrome 99 on Mac managed a score of 300, which is the highest score to date. According to 9to5Google, Safari usually scores around 277.
Google credited the usage of the ThinLTO build optimization technique, the V8 Sparkplug compiler, and short builtin calls for the performance gains. Even on the graphics side, the company claims that its browser is 15% faster than Safari. In the 17 months since Chrome"s launch on M1-powered Macs, the browser is already 43% faster than its initial version. Google went on to say that:
We know that benchmarks are just one of many ways of measuring the speed of a browser. At the end of the day, what matters most is that Chrome is actually faster and more efficient in everyday usage, so we’ll continue to invest in innovative performance improvements that push the envelope of what’s possible in modern computing.
However, this does not mean that Mac is the only platform that Google is focusing on when it comes to Chrome performance. It says that it is trying out several techniques to make the browser more performant on Android, and just a few months ago, it also claimed that Chrome on Windows has become significantly faster as well.