Google touts Chrome 10 support for GPUs and Javascript performance

WEB BROWSER DEVELOPER Google is trumpeting the speed of the Javascript engine in the latest beta of its Chrome web browser, claiming a 66 per cent improvement over previous versions.

Google released the latest beta of Chrome 10 saying that not only does its browser run significantly faster in the V8 Javascript benchmark suite but it also incorporates an early implementation of GPU accelerated video. Google claims that users with supported GPUs might see an 80 per cent decrease in CPU utilisation.

Aside from improvements to Javascript and video playback, Google has introduced the ability to synchronise saved passwords across multiple computers with the ability have them encrypted. This complements synchronisation of themes, bookmarks, preferences and extensions across Chrome browsers.

Google has always paid attention to the Javascript performance of its Chrome browser. However by its own published figures, improvements in Javascript performance have been modest since Chrome 5, however it seems Chrome 10 will provide a step-change in performance.

Hardware acceleration is fast becoming the battleground for web browser developers with Microsoft trumpeting the GPU acceleration capabilities of its upcoming Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) web browser.

However with Mozilla and Google also implementing similar software, it's likely web users won't be forced to use IE9 for long if they want to save a little battery life by letting the GPU take the strain. µ