Along with the launch of Chrome 37 stable, Google has released a version for Windows 7 and Windows 8 web browsers compatible with 64-bit instructions.
In parallel with the launch of Chrome 37 to 32-bit, Google has released the first public version of 64-bit for Windows 7 and Windows 8. Although it is a stable release of the channel, Google considers an alternative version to download separately through a dedicated link in the download page of the browser.
The first versions of Chrome with support for new instructions dating back to last June, when they were released in the Dev channel and Canary. Support for 64-bit should result, according to Google, a boost in performance with respect to certain types of computational loads, and other advantages.
Last June, the company had identified three main benefits in the adoption of a new instruction set and that we also offer the following:
- Speed : 64-bit allow you to take advantage of the latest processors and compiler’s optimizations, a set of instructions more modern, and a calling convention that allows the logs to quickly manage multiple parameters of the functions. As a result, the speed is higher, especially in the graphics and multimedia content, where we will see an average improvement of 25% in terms of performance.
- Security : taking advantage of the latest features of operating systems such as High Entropy ASLR in Windows 8, Chrome will be more reliable in terms of safety on the platforms to 64-bit. I bit extra help to better defend the system against exploitation techniques such as JIT spraying, and to improve the effectiveness of security features such as partitioning heap.
- Stability : Finally, there has been a marked increase in the stability of Chrome 64-bit version than the 32-bit. In particular, the percentage of crashes in the rendering of web content has been halved compared to the 32-bit version of Chrome.
Despite the new version of Chrome 64-bit has been issued on the official channel, you can still find some bugs during its use, including the most obvious caused by the lack of support NPAPI plug-in 32-bit, next to disappear. If you have the need to use a plug-in between those listed (eg Google Voice Plugin, Google Earth), the company recommends that you continue to use the 32-bit version of your web browser.
Google said also that Chrome will continue to support 32-bit in the ” near future, ” but did not specify if and when the 64-bit download will become the default for all users. Chrome is already available in 64-bit for Linux, while it could be in development for Mac OS X.