Chrome 51 features new APIs, more efficient page rendering and plenty of security fixes

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,240   +192
Staff member

The Chrome team has pushed the latest version of Google’s popular web browser, Chrome 51, to the public channel. While it may not come with the same level of fanfare its predecessor enjoyed (the 50th release is a pretty significant milestone), it does include a number of bug fixes and general improvements which are always welcomed.

Perhaps the biggest new feature in Chrome 51 is support for the Credential Manager API which enables developers to store and retrieve password credentials and federated credentials. In layman’s terms, it simply makes it easier for users to sign into the sites they visit or sign back in when a session expires.

Another major change is the fact that Chrome no longer runs the rendering pipeline or requestAnimationFrame() callbacks for cross-origin frames that are offscreen. Again, in layman’s terms, this eliminates unnecessary work which can reduce power consumption by as much as 30 percent.

Chrome 51 includes 42 security fixes which, for some, may be reason enough to update. Google has highlighted on its Chrome blog the fixes that were contributed by external security researchers and how much they were paid (there are several $7,500 entries).

If you’re already running Chrome, Google’s built-in auto-update feature should take care of everything on your behalf. Those looking to try Chrome for the first time can download it now for Windows, Mac and Linux.

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I'd have to agree with the memory usage, Google Chrome is an absolute RAM pig. But, the one thing that keeps me using Google Chrome is that even though it's eating RAM the page rendering speeds don't at all go into the toilet like it does with Firefox.

I have noticed repeatedly that as Firefox eats more than 750 MBs of RAM page rendering speeds seriously tank. Try it some time, measure Firefox's page rendering speeds when Firefox is using more than 750 MB of RAM and then measure it with a clean browser instance. It's like night and day.

Google Chrome may eat RAM but so does Firefox. At least Google Chrome doesn't slow to a crawl like Firefox.

But with 16 GBs of RAM in my desktop, Google Chrome can eat all the RAM it wants; I have it.
 
What about java....for games like pogo. java and flash will both be gone, then what, how would one play games. I dont know what html is....but rumor has it that is what will be replacing java and flash.
 
Anyone notice in the previous version when you come out of full-screen video the top of the browser would be half off the top of the page? After this upgrade, it's the first thing I looked at to see if it was addressed , and it looks like they tried but now going to full-screen leaves a bit of the browser showing at the top - you have to put your cursor over it to get it to go away. Improvement, I guess?
 
What about java....for games like pogo. java and flash will both be gone, then what, how would one play games. I dont know what html is....but rumor has it that is what will be replacing java and flash.

How are you on a tech forum and not know what the basic building block for a web page is? Better question, how are you using the internet and not know what HTML is? HTML existed well before flash and java - and exists in EVERY single web page you have ever visited.
 
They need to fix Chrome's memory usage
I don't see how that's possible unless they abolish the multi-process tab feature Chrome has.. which is why it's extremely fast.

Good if you don't use many tabs.. horrible if you're a 300+ tab user like I am with Firefox. But Firefox went AWOL and I switched to Pale Moon, so I use Chrome for more and more things over time as PM is consistently broken on many sites and the developer seems to not give a ****. Sad that it's the only version of Firefox that stayed true to its roots.

Cyberfox is the next closest, but uses Australis and so CTR is intregrated to imitate the older look. It's not the same, at all.. and suffers its own problems (both technical and the dev, which IP banned me from the forum for posting a support thread).

Anyway, I heard Chrome 51 had numerous problems that broke page rendering for some people. I haven't updated because of it, but now after seeing this article (seriously, why don't they list the changelog in human readable form?), I may go update, as I let chrome run in the background a lot and that new feature sounds like it'd help tremendously.
 
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