The Google Chrome browser is more and more thirsty for memory

Google said this week that it has automatically done site isolation techniques that it had to add to its web browser, Google Chrome Chrome, to mitigate the impact of the Specter virus, discovered by the research giant's researchers in early 2018, an increase of 10 to 13% compared to the use of RAM.

This is bad news for those who think the Chrome browser is already using too much random access Although Chrome is the world's most popular browser, the company announced at its 2015 Developer Summit that Google I / O exceeded its users One billion people are active, but it is known to use a lot of memory, especially when the user has many open tabs.

Charlie Reis of Google explains that "the site isolation is a major change in the behavior of Chrome, but should not cause visible changes in general, because the site's isolation leads to Chrome creating more displays, which come with Performance Exchanges: the browser must use 10 to 13% more RAM because of the greater number of operations, and our team continues to work tirelessly to improve this. behavior in order to maintain the speed and security of Chrome.

The addition of browser protection techniques against Specter attacks is generally good, but the idea of ​​using additional RAM does not will not be welcomed by many Chrome users who often complain about the amount of RAM consumed by the browser.They use devices with 4GB or less RAM, but Google has promised to reduce the impact of the site isolation technology.

Google claims to have done this protection for 99% of its browser users on Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Chrome. According to the company, it has been retained 1% to monitor and improve performance, users can launch version 68 of the browser. Later in the month, check if the site is disabled or not by typing chrome: // process-internals in the address bar, indicating that this link does not work under browser version 67.

The company also promised to include site isolation technology in version 68 of the Chrome browser for Android: "We are also working on additional security controls for the browser, thereby limiting Spectrum attacks and attacks out of this vulnerability. .

Giant research, in collaboration with Intel, revealed in January the shortcomings of the Specter and Meltdown processor, prompting many companies such as Microsoft and other software companies to deploy patches for these shortcomings, Intel says that the future generation of His chips will be immune against this type of attack.

As a manufacturer of a number of platforms, Google also strives to mitigate the effects of Spectrum and Meltdown on its own products, including Chrome Chrome, the base of the system Chrome OS operating system. Improve security and help mitigate the risks posed by the Specter Fault.