Users of the world’s most popular internet browser must download a new Google Chrome update soon. The update marks the browser’s first major one since 2014.
According to an Express report, some people might absolutely hate the redesign and new features. In the Canary browser, users will see a new color scheme, a larger search bar, and rounded tab edges. All of these things sound great on the surface, but after so many years of using elements in a specific way, the adjustment period could prove troublesome for exceptionally high users.
Unfortunately, the most substantial fail for the redesign, according to Forbes , is the nasty surprise that using Chrome’s new version causes excessive memory consumption. In fact, it will take as much as 13 percent more RAM to run the favored web browser. That may prove difficult for people who regularly use older devices with less memory available for such exorbitant use.
Nobody escapes the change, because those with Chrome on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS will feel the effects. Unfortunately, the reason for the unparalleled memory usage is enhanced security features. With more and more breaches and hacks popping up nearly weekly in the news, the need for better security remains high, and the people at Google kept that thought in mind when developing the latest version of Chrome.
Google Chrome UPDATE: Users warned as huge change coming they may NOT like https://t.co/MTpkrGLFjb #GoogleChrome pic.twitter.com/9ueN4JYt6m
— Daily Express (@Daily_Express) July 14, 2018
The new security feature called “Site Isolation” eats up a big portion of a system’s RAM.
“Site Isolation is a significant change to Chrome’s behavior under the hood, but it generally shouldn’t cause visible changes for most users or web developers (beyond a few known issues),” Chrome software engineer Charlie Reis wrote. “It simply offers more protection between websites behind the scenes. Site Isolation does cause Chrome to create more renderer processes, which comes with performance tradeoffs: on the plus side, each renderer process is smaller, shorter-lived, and has less contention internally, but there is about a 10-13% total memory overhead in real workloads due to the larger number of processes.”
While the ultimate goal of the team is to ensure that the browser operates both securely and quickly, right now, that goal hasn’t become a reality. For now, users must find a way to live with some performance slowdowns in the name of safer web browser use, as Google works to create an update that will hopefully reduce the program’s extra RAM use while keeping top-notch security as a top priority.
Those with the oldest and slowest devices will feel the most significant impact from the Chrome upgrade.
