Google Chrome 76 Released in Stable Form
This month we’re sending thanks to Google for finally releasing Chrome 76 in stable form, which feels like an update aimed to help web developers improve performance and efficiency.
Chrome 76 was released on July 30th and a week in we’ve had the chance to give it a good test drive. Here’s what we think:
Quicker loading
Chrome 76 has seen improvements to its JavaScript engine, so loads websites and apps quicker than ever before. This is partly down to it’s new JSON parser, which word has it parses JSON 2.7x faster (on average). It’s also very memory efficient, so optimises the way different browsers allocate memory when they load JSON script.
Methods
Promise.allSettled()
This method is new to Chrome and is popular with web developers who need to know when the script looading has completed, rather than whether all the requests were successful or failed.
blob.text(), blob.arrayBuffer(), and blob.stream()
Support for all of these has been added, which aids how Chrome allows raw data Binary Large Objects to be read.
Network Settings
A new Network Settings pane has been added under the Network Panel menu, which declutters the original menu and fixes the usability issue users were reporting with seeing all options when the menu was narrow.
The items moved to this new menu are:
- Use Large Request Rows
- Group by Frame
- Show Overview
- Capture Screenshots
User features
For end users, Chrome 76 has a few new features to aid web experience, including:
• New install button on the address bar to install Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). These are normal web pages that appear like apps, which gives the user the option to use a faster web browser in a mobile experience environment.
• Flash items are now blocked by default, which will aid speed of loading. Users can turn this setting back to “Ask First” In the Settings>Content>Flash menu.
• Incognito mode has been tweaked so websites cannot detect whether you are using it, which may mean you can access content that would otherwise be locked under a subscription unless you use an open browser.
• Websites loaded in Chrome can now use CSS to detect if the OS is using a light or dark theme and then automatically make switches to their layout. So, if an end user is using a dark theme then the website can, in theory, switch to a dark theme automatically.