Despite the great competition that we can find today in the web browser market, Google Chrome is still ahead of all of them. The Google browser is, without a doubt, the favorite of users for being the most comfortable and secure browser that we can find. Google offers great maintenance for your browser, frequently releasing minor security fixes and, every several weeks, a new enhancement update for this browser. Thus, after seeing the new Firefox 83 yesterday, today it is the turn of Google Chrome 87.
What’s new in Google Chrome 87
Chrome 87 has arrived as an update focused, above all, on performance. The browser has been trying for a long time to reduce the RAM and CPU usage of unused background tabs. According to Google, background JavaScript processes account for 40% of total performance. Therefore, to free up RAM and CPU, Google will begin to suspend all tabs that are in the background, and will only allow them to reactivate once a minute. Thanks to this change, CPU usage is reduced by 5 times and the battery life of a laptop can be extended by up to an hour and a half.
Another change related to that is the arrival of Occlusion Tracking , a function that allows Chrome to know which tabs we use most often and avoid suspending them.
As promised in 2018, Chrome has phased out the use of FPT due to only 1% of users using it. Therefore, by default, if we now try to enter a website that starts with ftp: //, nothing will happen. If we need to use this protocol, we can re-enable it from the flag: chrome: // flags / # enable-ftp.
Another interesting novelty is that, from now on, Chrome will allow us to perform certain actions directly from the browser’s search bar . Thus, by typing the following commands we will be able to:
- Clear browsing data
- Manage payment methods
- Open incognito window
- Manage passwords
- Update Chrome
- Translate page
Also, although it is still disabled by default, Chrome may start displaying Discover content very soon in the desktop browser. Although, for now, this is disabled. The PDF viewer has also been improved, receiving a new drawer from which we will be able to see a miniature view of the document pages, and jump to any of them with a click or the number key.
Google Cloud Print will stop working at the beginning of next year, so, from now on, Chrome will notify us of this and remind us that, in order not to lose the files, we must save them in Google Drive. It also reminds us that Adobe Flash Player will disappear very soon, and will allow us to completely disable it from our browser right now.
Finally, Chrome 87 has received two simple security updates :
- It will notify us when a form is not submitted over HTTPS and will disable auto-completion.
- It will block the download of certain types of files, such as PDF or DOC, over HTTP.
Download or update
This new version of the browser is now available to all users within its stable branch. Chrome has an automatic update system that allows users to download new versions in the background and install them automatically, so we won’t have to do anything to stay up-to-date.
If we want to make sure we have the latest Chrome 87, we can go to the Help> Google Chrome Information section, and check the installed version. If we don’t have version 87 installed yet, it will be downloaded automatically from here.
And finally, we can also manually download the latest version of Google Chrome.