Tuesday, March 26th 2024
Google Launches Arm-Optimized Chrome for Windows, in Time for Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite Processors
Google has just released an Arm-optimized version of its popular Chrome browser for Windows PCs. This new version is designed to take full advantage of Arm-based devices' hardware and operating system, promising users a faster and smoother browsing experience. The Arm-optimized Chrome for Windows has been developed in close collaboration with Qualcomm, ensuring that Chrome users get the best possible experience on current Arm-compatible PCs. Hiroshi Lockheimer, Senior Vice President at Google, stated, "We've designed Chrome browser to be fast, secure, and easy to use across desktops and mobile devices, and we're always looking for ways to bring this experience to more people." Early testers of the Arm-optimized Chrome have reported significant performance improvements compared to the x86-emulated version. The new browser is rolling out starting today and will be available on existing Arm devices, including PCs powered by Snapdragon 8cx, 8c, and 7c processors.
Shortly, Chrome will receive an even more performant chip boost with Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon X Elite SoC launch. Cristiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm, expressed his excitement about the collaboration, saying, "As we enter the era of the AI PC, we can't wait to see Chrome shine by taking advantage of the powerful Snapdragon X Elite system." Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite devices are expected to hit the market in mid-2024 with "dramatic performance improvement in the Speedometer 2.0 benchmark" on reference hardware. Being one of the most essential applications, getting a native Chrome build to run on Windows-on-Arm is a significant step for the platform, promising more investment from software makers.
Source:
Google Blog
Shortly, Chrome will receive an even more performant chip boost with Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon X Elite SoC launch. Cristiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm, expressed his excitement about the collaboration, saying, "As we enter the era of the AI PC, we can't wait to see Chrome shine by taking advantage of the powerful Snapdragon X Elite system." Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite devices are expected to hit the market in mid-2024 with "dramatic performance improvement in the Speedometer 2.0 benchmark" on reference hardware. Being one of the most essential applications, getting a native Chrome build to run on Windows-on-Arm is a significant step for the platform, promising more investment from software makers.
8 Comments on Google Launches Arm-Optimized Chrome for Windows, in Time for Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite Processors
The majority of computers sold for personal use are notebook models where performance-per-watt and battery life have great importance. That's Arm's forte, performance-per-watt.
Your "dream combination" of Arm + high-wattage graphics card doesn't make much practical sense because there isn't much standing in the way of plunking a 200W TDP CPU. Again, measurable benefits would primarily be on a notebook PC, definitely not a desktop PC which is an increasingly smaller percentage of total PCs sold.
This is really about running Windows on Arm-powered ultrabooks for corporate/personal use to fend off MacBooks. There are low-powered Intel mobile processors but from a performance-per-watt metric, Arm is very competitive.
In any case Chromium on Windows for Arm has been around for a while. This is the moment where Alphabet puts their stamp of approval on a Google-branded Chrome running natively on Arm replacing the emulated bits.
It's worth pointing out that there are all sorts of versions of Chromium-based browsers, many of which are compiled for a specific architecture. There are Chromium versions for AVX2, AVX, Mac-x64, Mac-AppleSilicon, Arm, etc.
But in time, what you are dreaming of might actually exist. But baby steps, gotta learn to walk before you run. This is Google Chrome's first steps as a toddler. I bet you didn't run the 100m dash in 10.3 seconds the day after you were born.
You got it right when stating that ARM was about consuming less power. The batteries in either laptop last forever. Native ARM64 Firefox, (now) CPU-Z and 7zip all work wonderfully. As does the WoW ARM client.
But Chrome has a thing for memory, consuming so much and well, I'm gonna test it and imagine if all-day battery life was reduced to "an hour remaining" cause Google keeps screwing up memory management somehow.
But let's face, almost nobody cares about Firefox in 2024. Their browser marketshare is hovering around 2% which is the cutoff point for US government website support. If marketshare consistently drops below 2%, the US government will inform in-house and third-party web developers they no longer have to support Firefox.
I would say there's a 50-50 chance that will happen which may drive Firefox to extinction, at least in its current form.
The big problem with Firefox is the perceived lack of differentiated features. I don't see Firefox as having any real world advantages other than being a Chrome alternative. I use Firefox ESR mostly when I want to use the VideoDownloadHelper extension (Firefox seems to work better). But for the sites I mostly access Safari and Chrome-based browsers have fewer compatibility issues. And I don't even use Google Chrome, I use specialized Chromium browsers that mostly have the Google parts ripped out.
Back to the topic, imagine an arm64 for gaming handheld instead of Intel and AMD, that will be really good news?