Chromium Blog

Chrome 104 Beta: New Media Query Syntax, Region Capture, and More

Thursday, June 23, 2022

A region capture window: broadcast content in blue, cropped content in red.

Media Queries Level 4 Syntax and EvaluationMedia Queries enable responsive design, and the range features that enable testing the minimum and maximum size of the viewport are used by around 80% of sites that use media queries. The Media Queries Level 4 specification includes a new syntax for these range queries. They can now be written using ordinary mathematical comparison operators. Also supported are the logical operators or and not, and nesting and evaluation of "unknown" features. For example, a media query previously written like this:@media (min-width: 400px) { … } Can now be written like this:@media (width >= 400px) { … } For more information, see New syntax for range media queries in Chrome 104. Origin TrialsThis version of Chromium supports the origin trials described below. Origin trials allow you to try new features and give feedback on usability, practicality, and effectiveness to the web standards community. To register for any of the origin trials currently supported in Chromium, including the ones described below, visit the Chrome Origin Trials dashboard. To learn more about origin trials in Chrome, visit the Origin Trials Guide for Web Developers. Microsoft Edge runs its own origin trials separate from Chrome. To learn more, see the Microsoft Edge Origin Trials Developer Console. New Origin TrialsFocusgroupThe focusgroup CSS property improves keyboard focus navigation using the keyboard arrow keys among a set of focusable elements. Adding this feature to browsers allows web developers to control focus navigation without custom solutions that can lead to a lack of consistency, accessibility, and interoperability. Sign up here for the Microsoft Edge origin trial. It's scheduled to last through 107.Opt Out of Credit Card StorageSecure Payment Confirmation now supports a means for users to opt out of storing their credit card data to make later purchases easier. To use the new feature, set showOptOut to true on methodData.data, which is passed as the first parameter of the PaymentRequest() constructor. For example:const methodata = [{ … data: { … showOptOut: true … } }]; const request = new PaymentRequest(methodData, details); To see an example in context check out the demo. You can sign up here for the origin trial. It's scheduled to last through Chrome 106.Shared Element TransitionsShared Element Transitions enables the creation of polished transitions in single-page applications (SPAs). Minimal development effort is required by devs to make transitions look nice; they can choose to use default animation properties, or they can customize their own transition effects to achieve the desired transition experience.Transitions are set declaratively using CSS properties. For more information, see Shared Element Transitions. Visit the dashboard to sign up for the origin trial.Completed Origin TrialsThe following features, previously in a Chrome origin trial, are now enabled by default.Speculation RulesSpeculation rules provide a mechanism for web content to permit prefetching or prerendering of certain URLs. For example:<script type="speculationrules"> { "prefetch": [ {"source": "list", "urls": ["/weather/kitchener", "/weather/seattle", "/weather/tokyo"]} ] } </script> Subresource Loading with Web BundlesSubresource loading with web bundles is a way to load many resources efficiently. To use the feature a web page declares that certain resources are provided by a web bundle at a particular URL. For example:<script type="webbundle"> { "source": "https://example.com/dir/subresources.wbn", "resources": ["https://example.com/dir/a.js", "https://example.com/dir/b.js", "https://example.com/dir/c.png"] } </script> For information on creating web bundles, see Get started with Web Bundles. For more information on subresource loading using web bundles, see Origin Trial for Subresource Loading with Web Bundles. Window Controls Overlay for Installed Desktop Web AppsOn desktop, a web app's client area can now be extended to cover the entire window, including the title bar area, and the window control buttons (close, maximize/restore, minimize) are overlaid on top of the client area. The web app developer is responsible for drawing and input-handling for the entire window except for the window controls overlay. Developers can use this feature to make their installed desktop web apps look more like platform apps.Other Features in this ReleaseCookie Expires/Max-Age Attribute Upper LimitWhen cookies are set with an explicit Expires/Max-Age attribute the value will now be capped to no more than 400 days. Previously, there was no limit and cookies could expire as much as multiple millennia in the future. This follows a change in the spec.

400 days was chosen as a round number close to 13 months. This duration ensures that sites visited roughly once a year (for example, sites for choosing health insurance benefits) will continue to work.CSS object-view-boxThe object-view-box property allows authors to specify a portion of an image that should draw within the content box of a target replaced element. This enables creation of images with a custom glow or shadow applied, with proper ink-overflow behavior such as a CSS shadow would have. For more information, see First Look At The CSS object-view-box Property.Fullscreen Capability DelegationFullscreen Capability Delegation allows a Window to transfer the ability to call requestFullscreen() to another Window it trusts after relinquishing the transient user activation at the sender Window. This feature is based on the general delegation mechanism that shipped in Chrome 100.Multi-Screen Window Placement: Fullscreen Companion WindowFullscreen Companion Window allows sites to place fullscreen content and a popup window on separate screens from a single user activation. There is a demo available with source code on GitHub.Permissions Policy for Web Bluetooth APIWeb Bluetooth is now controllable with a Permissions Policy. The token is named "bluetooth" and has a default allowlist of 'self'.visual-box on overflow-clip-marginThe overflow-clip-margin property specifies how far an element's content is allowed to paint before being clipped. This feature allows using visual-box values to configure the reference box that defines the overflow clip edge the content is clipped to. Web Custom Formats for Async Clipboard APIWeb Custom Formats lets websites read and write arbitrary unsanitized payloads using a standardized web custom format, as well as read and write a limited subset of OS-specific formats (for supporting legacy apps).

The name of the clipboard format is mangled by the browser in a standardized way to indicate that the content is from the web. This allows platform applications to opt-in to accepting the unsanitized content.Some web app developers want to exchange data payloads between web and platform applications via operating system clipboards. The Clipboard API supports the most popular standardized data types (text, image, rich text) across all platforms. However, this API does not scale to the long tail of specialized formats. In particular, custom formats, non-web-standard formats like TIFF (a large image format), and proprietary formats like docx (a document format), are not supported by the current Web Platform.WebGL Canvas Color ManagementAs per the spec, Chromium's implementation of WebGL now allows specifying:

The color space of a drawing buffer.

The color space that content should be converted to when importing as a texture.

Before this version of Chrome, both of these defaulted to sRGB. Now they can also use "display-p3".Deprecations, and RemovalsThis version of Chrome introduces the deprecations and removals listed below. Visit ChromeStatus.com for lists of current deprecations and previous removals.Block Third-Party Contexts Navigating to Filesystem URLsiframes can no longer navigate to filesystem URLs. Top frame support for navigating to filesystem URLs was dropped in Chrome 68.Remove Non-Standard Client Hint ModeFour client hints (dpr, width, viewport-width, and device-memory) have a default allowlist of self but behave as though they have a default allowlist of * on Android, contrary to the spec. This is now fixed, increasing privacy on Android by requiring explicit delegation of these hints.Remove U2F API (Cryptotoken)Chrome's legacy U2F API for interacting with security keys is no longer supported. U2F security keys themselves are not deprecated and will continue to work.Affected sites should migrate to the Web Authentication API. Credentials that were originally registered via the U2F API can be challenged via web authentication. USB security keys that are supported by the U2F API are also supported by the Web Authentication API.U2F is Chrome's original security key API. It allows sites to register public key credentials on USB security keys and challenge them for building phishing-resistant two-factor authentication systems. U2F never became an open web standard and was subsumed by the Web Authentication API (launched in Chrome 67). Chrome never directly supported the FIDO U2F JavaScript API, but rather shipped a component extension called cryptotoken, which exposes an equivalent chrome.runtime.sendMessage() method. U2F and Cryptotoken are firmly in maintenance mode and have encouraged sites to migrate to the Web Authentication API for the last two years.

Chrome 103 Beta: Early Navigation Hints, a Host of Completed Origin Trials, and More

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Completed Origin TrialsThe following features, previously in a Chrome origin trial, are now enabled by default.Local Font AccessWeb applications can now enumerate local fonts and metadata about each. The new API also gives web applications access to table data stored within local fonts, allowing those fonts to be rendered within their applications using custom text stacks.Note: The Chrome 102 beta post erroneously listed this feature as shipping in that version.Same-Origin Prerendering Triggered by the Speculation Rules APIPrerendering loads a web page before it is needed, so that when the actual navigation to that page occurs, it can be shown instantly. To speed up page loads. Chrome's previous prerender mechanism is now replaced with No State Prefetch. No State Prefetch doesn't generally result in an instant page load experience, but the new feature does. This feature is supported on Android only.Update User-Agent Client Hints GREASE ImplementationThe implementation of GREASE in User Agent Client Hints is now aligned with the current spec, which includes additional GREASE characters beyond the current semicolon and space, and which recommends varying the arbitrary version. This helps prevent bad assumptions from being built on top of User-Agent strings.Other Features in this ReleaseAbortSignal.timeout() Static MethodReturns a new AbortSignal object that is automatically aborted after a given number of milliseconds. Use this method to easily implement timeouts for signal-accepting asynchronous APIs, such as fetch(). For example:

fetch(url, { signal: AbortSignal.timeout(10_000) });ARIA Attribute Reflection for the role AttributeThe Element and ElementInternal interfaces now include an ARIA property called ariaRoleDescription which returns or modifies the ARIA role attribute directly. This feature is only supported on desktop.avif is Now a Permitted Web Share File ExtensionThe avif image file format is now sharable by Web Share. Adding avif to the other allowed image file types helps spread the use of it. A website might like their users to be able to share pictures and other files through social media, email, chat, etc. The Web Share API is already shipped to more platforms such as ChromeOS and Windows, but avif is not supported yet."deflate-raw" Compression FormatChrome supports a new compression format, deflate-raw, to give web developers access to the raw deflate stream without any headers or footers. This is needed, for example, to read and write zip files.form rel AttributeThe 'rel' attribute has been added to form elements. This makes it possible to prevent window.opener from being present on websites navigated to by form elements which have rel=noopener. It also prevents the referer header from being sent with rel=noreferrer.popstate Fires Before LoadChromium now matches Firefox and by firing popstate immediately after URL changes so that the order of events is now popstate then hashchange across both platforms. Before this change, Chromium fired hashchange asynchronously after a task, and delayed popstate until the load event. This means the event order could be either hashchange then popstate, or popstate then hashchange, depending on how long a document took to load. Restrict Gamepad UsageThe Gampepad API now requires a secure context. Additionally a new feature policy called 'gamepad' has been added with a default allowlist of 'self'.SerialPort forget()The SerialPort forget() method allows web developers to voluntarily revoke a permission to a serial port that was granted by a user. Some sites may not be interested in retaining long-term permissions to access serial ports. For example, for an educational web application used on a shared computer with many devices, a large number of accumulated user-generated permissions creates a poor user experience.

In addition to user agent mitigations to avoid this problem, such as defaulting to a session scoped permission on the first request or expiring infrequently used permissions, it should be possible for the site itself to clean up user-generated permissions it no longer needs.This follows the recent additions of a forget() method for the HIDDevice and USBDevice interfaces.Support visual-box on overflow-clip-marginThe overflow-clip-margin CSS property now supports visual-box, which specifies the box edge to use as the overflow clip edge origin. Valid values are content-box, padding-box (the default), or border-box. The overflow-clip-margin property specifies how far an element's content is allowed to paint before being clipped. User Activation Required for SPC Credential EnrollmentA user activation requirement has been added for Secure Payment Confirmation credential enrollment in a cross-origin iframe. This is being done to help mitigate a privacy issue.Deprecations, and RemovalsThis version of Chrome introduces the deprecations and removals listed below. Visit ChromeStatus.com for lists of current deprecations and previous removals.Block External Protocol in Sandboxed iframeSandboxed iframes are not blocked from opening external applications. Currently, developers sandbox untrusted content and block user navigation. Blocking probably should have also included links to external apps or to the Play store. This has now been fixed. Sites that need navigation can add the following values to the <iframe> element's sandbox property:

allow-popups

allow-top-navigation

allow-top-navigation-with-user-activation

Remove Battery Status API on Insecure OriginsThe Battery Status API is no longer supported on insecure contexts, specifically HTTP pages and HTTPS iframes embedded in HTTP pages. This is being removed in accordance with our policy of deprecating powerful features on insecure origins, This also follows a spec change.Remove <param> ElementGiven the removal of plugins from the web platform, and the relative lack of use of <param>, it is being removed from the web platform.Posted by Joseph Medley

Chrome 102: Window Controls Overlay, a Host of Finished Origin Trials, PWAs as File Handlers and More

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Completed Origin TrialsThe following features, previously in a Chrome origin trial, are now enabled by default. Origin trials allow you to try new features and give feedback on usability, practicality, and effectiveness to the web standards community. To register for any of the origin trials currently supported in Chrome, including the ones described below, visit the Chrome Origin Trials dashboard. To learn more about origin trials in Chrome, visit the Origin Trials Guide for Web Developers. Microsoft Edge runs its own origin trials separate from Chrome. To learn more, see the Microsoft Edge Origin Trials Developer Console.Capture HandleA new mechanism allows an application to opt-in to exposing information to applications that are video-capturing it. This allows collaboration between capturing and captured applications. For example, a video conference application that's video-capturing a presentation, could expose user-facing controls in the video conference tab for navigating the presentation in the captured tab.Network State PartitioningNetwork state is now partitioned by the network partition key (which consists of top frame site and possibly frame site), to protect against cross-site tracking through the use of side channels. "Network State" here includes connections (H1, H2, H3, websocket), the DNS cache, ALPN/H2 support data, TLS/H3 resumption information, Reporting/NEL configuration and uploads, and Expect-CT information. Cross-site tracking is a major privacy concern for users. This is a necessary part of addressing the problem.Speculation RulesSpeculation rules provides a flexible syntax for defining what outgoing links are eligible to be prefetched before navigation. It also enables additional enhancements, such as use of a private prefetch proxy, where applicable.Subresource loading with Web BundlesThis feature provides a new approach to loading a large number of resources efficiently using a format that allows multiple resources to be bundled, e.g. Web Bundles.Other Features in this ReleaseFile Handlers Web App Manifest MemberFile Handling provides a way for web applications to declare the ability to handle files with given MIME types and extensions. The web application will receive an event when the user intends to open a file with that web application.To define a PWA as a file handler, add the file_handlers member to the Web App Manifest. You can read about its members in the spec.inert AttributeThe new inert attribute lets you mark parts of the DOM tree as inert. When a node is inert:

Hit-testing must act as if the pointer-events CSS property were set to 'none'.

Text selection functionality must act as if the user-select CSS property were set to 'none'.

If it is editable, the node behaves as if it were non-editable.

The user agent may ignore the node for the purposes of find-in-page.

For more information, see Introducing inert.Local Font AccessWeb applications can now enumerate local fonts and metadata about each. The new API also gives web applications access to table data stored within local fonts, allowing those fonts to be rendered within their applications using custom text stacks.Notes: This feature actually shipped in 103 instead of 102 as originally reported.Navigation APIThe new Navigation interface (accessible on window) lets apps intercept and initiate navigations, and introspect an application's history entries. This provides a more useful alternative to window.history and window.location specifically aimed at the needs of single-page web applications.New until-found Value for the hidden AttributeChrome adds a new value, until-found, for the hidden attribute, which makes an element searchable by find-in-page, scroll to text fragment, and fragment navigation. When these search/navigation features want to scroll to something inside a hidden=until-found element, the browser removes the hidden attribute from the element and fires the beforematch event on it so that the newly revealed content can be scrolled into view. For more information, see Making collapsed content accessible with hidden=until-found - Chrome Developers.Origin Private File System extension: AccessHandleThe Origin Private File System (part of the File System Access API) is augmented with a new surface that improves the performance of data access. This new surface differs from existing ones by offering in-place and exclusive write access to a file's content. This change, along with the ability to consistently read unflushed modifications and the availability of a synchronous variant on dedicated workers, significantly improves performance and unblocks new use cases.Private Network Access Preflight Requests for SubresourcesA CORS preflight request is now sent ahead of schedule for private network requests for subresources, requesting explicit permission from the target server. If the preflight fails, a warning is displayed in DevTools but the request proceeds as before. This is not expected to be a breaking change. Websites whose servers ignore or fail the new preflight request will continue to work as before.A private network request is any request from a public website to a private IP address or localhost, or from a private website (e.g. intranet) to localhost. Sending a preflight request mitigates the risk of cross-site request forgery attacks against private network devices such as routers, which are often not prepared to defend against this threat.Secure Payment Confirmation API ChangesThis release contains three changes to the Secure Payment Confirmation API, specifically to the data passed to the PaymentMethod() constructor.

A new required property, data.rpId, which should contain the relying party ID. Implementations that don't currently specify this will need to be updated.

A new optional property, data.instrument.iconMustBeShown, allows a placeholder icon to be used when the card art icon cannot be downloaded. Setting this field to false allows a payment to proceed when the icon can be downloaded. The default is true.

A new optional property, data.payeeName, allows callers to display a natural name for the payee instead of or alongside the existing data.payeeOrigin.

WebHID exclusionFilters Option in requestDevice()The options object passed HID.requestDevice() now includes an exclusionFilters property. (HID is accessed via navigator.hid.) This property lets you exclude some devices from the browser picker. You can use it to exclude devices that are known to be malfunctioning. Previously, developers had to test a selected device with custom code, then ask the user to pick another if the selected device did not work. The exclusionFilters property (you will need to search for that term in the text) is an array of objects with the same members as the existing options. Here's an example of how to use the requestDevice() options argument. The example first requests access to a device with vendor ID 0xABCD. The device must also have a collection with usage page Consumer (0x000C) and usage ID Consumer Control (0x0001). The device with product ID 0x1234 is malfunctioning.const [device] = await navigator.hid.requestDevice({ filters: [{ vendorId: 0xabcd, usagePage: 0x000c, usage: 0x0001 }], exclusionFilters: [{ vendorId: 0xabcd, productId: 0x1234 }], }); Deprecations, and RemovalsThis version of Chrome introduces the deprecations and removals listed below. Visit ChromeStatus.com for lists of current deprecations and previous removals.Deprecate PaymentRequest.show() without User ActivationSites can no longer call PaymentRequest.show() without a user activation. Allowing PaymentRequest.show() to be triggered without a user activation could be abused by malicious websites. To protect users, the spec was changed to require user activation. To avoid a broken purchase experience, calls to this method should now be inside a user event such as click.Firefox has not shipped PaymentRequest at all, while Safari's implementation already requires user activation for calling show().Remove SDP Plan BThe Session Description Protocol (SDP) used to establish a session in WebRTC has been implemented with two different dialects in Chromium: Unified Plan and Plan B. Plan B is not cross-browser compatible and is hereby removed. In this version of Chrome an exception will be thrown when Plan B is used. Developers needing to avoid the exception can participate in a deprecation trial until May 25, 2022. If you participated in the previous deprecation trial that ended in December, and want to participate in the current trial, you will need to request a new token.

Chrome 101: Federated Credential Management Origin Trial, Media Capabilities for WebRTC, and More

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Unless otherwise noted, changes described below apply to the newest Chrome beta channel release for Android, Chrome OS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. Learn more about the features listed here through the provided links or from the list on ChromeStatus.com. Chrome 101 is beta as of March 31, 2022. You can download the latest on Google.com for desktop or on Google Play Store on Android. Reduce User Agent String InformationChrome is trying to reduce the amount of information the user agent string exposes in HTTP requests as well as in navigator.userAgent, navigator.appVersion, and navigator.platform. We're doing this to prevent the user agent string from being used for passive user fingerprinting. To join the origin trial, see its entry on Chrome Origin Trials. See the end of this article for additional deprecations and removals.Origin TrialsThis version of Chrome introduces the origin trial described below. Origin trials allow you to try new features and give feedback on usability, practicality, and effectiveness to the web standards community. To register for any of the origin trials currently supported in Chrome, including the ones described below, visit the Chrome Origin Trials dashboard. To learn more about origin trials in Chrome, visit the Origin Trials Guide for Web Developers. Microsoft Edge runs its own origin trials separate from Chrome. To learn more, see the Microsoft Edge Origin Trials Developer Console. New Origin TrialFederated Credential Management APIFederated Credential Management API (FedCM) aims to create privacy-preserving identity federation and is designed to make identity federation continue to allow use cases without the need for cross-site tracking such as third-party cookies. This feature starts its origin trial in 101 on Android only. We expect to add desktop support in Chrome 102.Completed Origin TrialsThe following feature, previously in a Chrome origin trial, is now enabled by default. Priority HintsPriority Hints provides a way to indicate a resource's relative importance to the browser, allowing more control over the order resources are loaded.Other Features in this ReleaseAudioContext.outputLatencyAudioContext.outputLatency property is an estimation in seconds of the interval between when the user agent requests a host system to play a buffer and when the first sample in the buffer is processed by the audio output device. For devices such as speakers or headphones that produce an acoustic signal, 'processed by the audio output device' refers to the time when a sample's sound is produced. This property helps developers compensate for the latency between the input and the output. It's also useful for synchronization of video and audio streams.This property is already implemented in Firefox.font-palette and Custom @font-palette-values PalettesThe font-palette CSS property allows selecting a palette from a color font. In combination with the @font-palette-values at-rule, custom palettes can be defined. This feature is useful in designs where an icon or emoji font is used with dark or light mode, or when using multi-colored icon fonts that use the font-palette to harmonize with the content's color scheme.hwb() CSS functionHWB (short for 'hue whiteness blackness') is another method of specifying sRGB colors, similar to HSL, but often even easier for humans to work with. The hwb() function specifies HWB values in CSS. The function takes three arguments. The first, hue, specifies hue in degrees (not constrained to the range [0, 360]). The next two, whiteness and blackness, are specified as percentages.Make Popup Argument for window.open() Evaluate to 'true'This feature follows a recent change to the spec for parsing the popup argument for window.open(). Previously, when popup was set equal to true, window.open() was interpreted to mean false. This is counterintuitive and confusing. This change makes boolean features easier to use and understand.MediaCapabilities API for WebRTCThe MediaCapabilities API has been extended to support WebRTC streams. The MediaCapabilities API helps websites make informed decisions on what codec, resolution, etc. to use for video playback by indicating whether a configuration is supported and also whether the playback is expected to be smooth.
Without this feature, web apps need to guess about suitable configurations. This can result in poor quality such as when an application uses low resolution or frame rates unnecessarily, or stuttering when the frame rate is too high.Secure Payment Confirmation API V3The following features from version three of the Secure Payment Confirmation API are now implemented:

A relying party ID that is a required input. Because this is required, existing code will need to be updated.

An optional boolean to allow failed instrument icon download.

A payeeName property as an optional input.

USBDevice forget()The USBDevice forget() method allows web developers to voluntarily revoke a permission to a USBDevice that was granted by a user.WebUSB sameObject BehaviorUSBConfiguration, USBInterface, USBAlternateInterface, and USBEndpoint instances are now only strictly equal ("===") when they are retrieved from accessors on the same USBDevice.Deprecations, and RemovalsThis version of Chrome introduces the deprecations and removals listed below. Visit ChromeStatus.com for lists of current deprecations and previous removals.Remove WebSQL in Third-Party ContextsWebSQL in third-party contexts is now removed. The Web SQL Database standard was first proposed in April 2009 and abandoned in November 2010. Gecko never implemented this feature and WebKit deprecated it in 2019. The W3C encourages Web Storage and Indexed Database for those needing alternatives.Developers should expect that WebSQL itself will be deprecated and removed when usage is low enough.

What to Expect from Privacy Sandbox Testing

Thursday, March 31, 2022

[Update on April 15, 2022]
origin trialChrome Betaregisterupdates
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We’re excited to share that Chrome is starting the next stage of testing for the Privacy Sandbox ads relevance and measurement proposals.

Starting today, developers can begin testing globally the Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting APIs in the Canary version of Chrome. We’ll progress to a limited number of Chrome Beta users as soon as possible. Once things are working smoothly in Beta, we’ll make API testing available in the stable version of Chrome to expand testing to more Chrome users.

We recognize that developers will need some time to use the APIs, validate the data flows, and measure performance. We are looking forward to companies providing feedback as they move through the different testing phases, which will allow us to continually improve the APIs. Once we’re confident that the APIs are working as designed, we’ll make them broadly available in Chrome, allowing more developers to integrate, evaluate and provide feedback as we continue to optimize them for their use cases.

Developers can expect support from Chrome in the form of developer guidance, regular updates, and a range of feedback and engagement channels. We strongly encourage developers to share feedback publicly and with Chrome, and we’ll closely monitor progress along the way. We also welcome the role industry associations can play in this process, from facilitating collaborative industry tests to aggregating feedback themes.

Chrome will also begin testing updated Privacy Sandbox settings and controls that allow users to see and manage the interests associated with them, or turn off the trials entirely.

Caption: Chrome will be testing updated Privacy Sandbox settings and controls.

The Privacy Sandbox proposals have already benefited substantially from the thoughtful feedback of early testers, and we’re eager to open up testing for more of our proposals. We’ll continue to gather feedback from the ecosystem and to engage with regulators globally, including through our work with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority in line with our commitments for the Privacy Sandbox on the web. If you’re interested in learning more about the APIs and how you can participate, please see our detailed developer guidance.

Posted by Vinay Goel, Product Director, Privacy Sandbox, Chrome

How Chrome Became the Highest Scoring Browser on Speedometer, Ever

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Last week we released a blog post about our improvements in Chrome speed over the past year culminating with the M99 release of Chrome. We wanted to follow up by going in depth on how we achieved this milestone in browser performance.

Since the launch of Chrome in 2008, one of our core principles has been to build the fastest browser, whether you're on your phone or laptop. We have never strayed from our performance mission, and are always analyzing and optimizing every part of Chrome. We're proud to announce that Chrome scores over 300 on Apple’s Speedometer 2.0 benchmark suite on the M1 MacBook, the highest score we’ve ever seen. In this The Fast and the Curious post we'll go behind the scenes to share all the work that went into making Chrome blazingly fast.

“If you can’t measure it you can’t improve it” – this sentiment has driven a large part of our work to improve Chrome’s performance since the early days. For measuring browser performance, there has been a long history of various benchmarks that aim to provide test workloads for browsers to track their performance. Making these benchmarks both reflective of the real and ever changing world, while also being consistent, is a challenge. Chrome uses a combination of internal benchmarking infrastructure and public, industry-standard benchmarks, to continuously measure Chrome’s performance. For comparing browsers’ JavaScript performance, Apple’s Speedometer 2.0 benchmark is the most reflective of the real world, and most broadly used today.

We’ve been tracking our performance on Speedometer 2.0 ever since it came out:

Beginning with the M87 release, Chrome shipped on the M1 based Mac and began measuring the speed of Chrome on the new CPU reflected in the red line above.

Since 2015, we’ve been measuring Chrome’s Speedometer scores on a 13-inch MacBook. In the graph above, you can see just some of the many projects that have helped make a dramatic improvement in performance. You can learn about fast lookups, the Ignition + TurboFan compilers, blazingly fast parsing, faster JS calls, Spectre, Pointer Compression, Short builtins, Sparkplug and much more on V8.dev. You’ll notice some projects actually decrease our Speedometer score, as building an entire browser is about managing trade offs. For example, with pointer compression, we were willing to take a small performance hit for the large memory savings it provided. Similarly, when the Spectre CPU exploit hit, we traded off performance to help guarantee the safety of our users.

The result of years of work has been an 83% improvement in Speedometer score, a dramatic improvement we are happy to deliver to our users. With Apple’s introduction of the M1 CPU, combined with Sparkplug and LTO+PGO, Chrome now scores over 300 - the highest score any browser has ever achieved \o/.

We are excited to achieve this milestone in performance and look forward to delivering even more performance improvements with each release. Stay tuned to this blog to stay up to date on all things speed.

Posted by Thomas Nattestad, Chrome Product Manager

Footnote:Data source for M1 MacBook statistics: Speedometer 2.0 comparing Chrome 99.0.4812.0 --enable-features=CanvasOopRasterization --use-cmd-decoder=passthrough vs. Safari 15.2 17612.3.6.1.6 on a MacBook Pro (14", 2021), Apple M1 Max, 10 cores (8 performance, 2 efficiency), 32 GPU cores, 64gb device.

A new speed milestone for Chrome

Monday, March 7, 2022

Everyday, billions of people around the world turn to Chrome to get things done quickly on their devices, whether shopping for a new pair of headphones or pulling together a sales report for work. Nothing is more frustrating than having a slow experience while browsing the web. That’s why Chrome has always been focused on building the fastest possible browser since its launch in 2008, without compromising on feature functionality or security. In our first The Fast and the Curious post of 2022, we are thrilled to celebrate how in the M99 release of Chrome we were able to substantially increase the speed of Chrome across all major platforms.
SpeedometerThinLTO

Two of the other recent major contributors to Chrome’s speed are the V8 Sparkplug compiler and short builtin calls. Sparkplug is a new mid-tier JavaScript compiler for V8 that generates efficient code with low compilation overhead. Short builtin calls are used by the V8 JavaScript engine to optimize the placement of generated code inside the device’s memory. This technique boosts performance by avoiding indirect jumps when calling functions and makes a substantial difference on Apple M1-based Macs.

Chrome continues to get faster on Android as well. Loading a page now takes 15% less time, thanks to prioritizing critical navigation moments on the browser user interface thread. Last year we also reduced startup time for Chrome on Android by 13% using Freeze-Dried Tabs. This approach conserves resources across the board by using a lightweight version of tabs on load, while the actual tab loads in the background. Finally, we were able to improve speed and memory usage using Isolated Splits, which improved startup time by preloading the majority of the browser process code on a background thread.

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.

Posted by Max Christoff, Senior Director, Chrome Engineering

Data source for Mac statistics: Speedometer 2.0 comparing Chrome 99.0.4812.0 --enable-features=CanvasOopRasterization --use-cmd-decoder=passthrough vs. Safari 15.2 17612.3.6.1.6 on a MacBook Pro (14", 2021), Apple M1 Max, 10 cores (8 performance, 2 efficiency), 32 GPU cores, 64gb device connected to power.

Data source for Android statistics: Real-world data anonymously aggregated from Chrome clients.

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