In June, Microsoft boasted that its new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge could see a 27 percent drop in memory usage alongside the Windows 10 May 2020 update. Google said it would follow suit. Edge. Now both browsers will see that edge removed after encountering a performance bug.
While the new Chromium-based Edge browser that Microsoft released earlier this year had some issues with data syncing, it was a simple and average browser, and still is. But it was supposed to get even more nimble with the release of the May 2020 Update (2004), due to improvements in memory allocation across the segment heap. Because Microsoft now contributes to Chromium, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge open source databases, improvements to the dynamic storage segment could also apply to Chrome, reducing that browser’s memory usage.
That changed this week, when an Intel engineer discovered that the trade-off for lower performance was, in fact, higher CPU utilization, (Techdows previously reported the story).
After further testing, Google programmer Bruce Dawson concluded that “the cost of the CPU (10% slowdown on the 2.0 speedometer, 13% increase in CPU / power consumption) is too great for us.” Interestingly, the problem was more pronounced on “multi-core” PCs, rather than the simpler PCs used by consumers.
“So the plan is to disable this to [Chrome 85] (thus giving us another telemetry data point) and reconsider in the future, “added Dawson.
Dawson’s decision was not popular with everyone. “The plan needs to be reconsidered to postpone enabling this: The vast majority of PC users aren’t going to notice the cost of the CPU, but they are affected by overall system performance due to Chrome’s memory requirements.” wrote another engineer.
“We are making the decision to reverse this change (for now) very seriously,” Dawson wrote in return on July 15. “I think the increase in CPU cost is enough to harm battery life. I’m sure it won’t be put off for long.”
