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Chrome IT

A Native Version of Chrome Arrives for Arm-based Windows PC 20

Google is releasing an optimized version of its Chrome browser for Windows on Arm this week, the search giant has announced alongside chipmaker Qualcomm. From a report: The official release comes two months after an early version of the browser was spotted in Chrome's Canary channel. Qualcomm says the release "will roll out starting today."

The release will be a big deal for any Chrome users with Windows machines powered by Arm-based processors, who'll now have access to a much faster native browser. That's in contrast to the x64 version of Chrome they've previously had to run in an emulated state with slow performance. Arm-based users have previously been able to turn to Microsoft's Edge, which is already available for Windows on Arm devices.
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A Native Version of Chrome Arrives for Arm-based Windows PC

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  • While dragging their heels on the Windows version for years. Shows who's really in charge of the browser industry .
  • by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @12:59PM (#64346367)

    The big advantage Microsoft has had for years is backward compatibility
    Switching to ARM will kill backward compatibility and cause many users extreme pain
    Some hardware requires Windows specific software to run. In many cases, a newer version will never be available because the company decides not to make one or the company is dead. The hardware, sometimes costing thousands, or even millions, is still usable
    Same with software. A lot of old software still works fine, and will never be updated. This may be because the creators are out of business, or the software was custom written for a particular special case
    Microsoft should not assume that all users have minimal needs. There are a lot of very specialized uses for Windows out there

    • "The big advantage Microsoft has had for years is backward compatibility"

      Has had? No, just had, until Windows Vista. Backwards compatibility went to shit then and has gotten even worse since.

      ARM is actually less of a problem than Windows version, because the x86 to ARM translator is now pretty good.

    • by xack ( 5304745 )
      I've played multiple sides of this debate, there's millions of unemployed programmers who would love to migrate your legacy apps. The fact is that static apps have gone away to the service model of constantly up to date software. Microsoft has ended support for dos, win16, legacy bios, and Internet Explorer apps already with Windows 11 and that is just on the x64 version of Windows. After October 2025 companies will be forced to update their legacy software as many companies and insurance policies prevent r
    • The ARM64 version of Windows 11 has emulators for both x86-32 and x86-64 applications, and it works for most programs.

    • Wintel is still alive and kicking. Windows on ARM (WARM) is still in its infancy. It's not going to knock off Wintel overnight (and probably won't ever).

    • Switching to ARM will kill backward compatibility and cause many users extreme pain

      In what possible way with it "kill backward compatibility"? I've found nothing whatsoever, including Steam and many games, that haven't run just fine on the x86 translation layer in Win11 ARM. There were shaky beginnings for sure, but in 2024, as Microsoft products go, it's a downright excellent piece of work.

      An ARM-native port is basically merely a platform optimisation; it's just going to be faster and more efficient on battery usage than x86 running through translation, at least for as long as the JIT

      • For work, aside from Office (that would have an ARM64 port), the only 'native' x86 application on Windows 11 I run is 32 bit, unsupported and hasn't been updated for a decade. So as long as the binary translation is capable of emulating with the speed of a Pentium 4, that would suit fine.

        Anything other than that uses a mixture of language specific dot net, Java or JS (Electron) VMs - which surely JIT ARM64 natively by now.

        But depending on the era of the software, something released in the past 13 years (WIn

  • by itsme1234 ( 199680 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @01:10PM (#64346387)

    That is across all versions...

  • A very long time ago, Microsoft released a board for Intel 8088 PCs called the Mach 20 which jacked the computer up to a 80286 so it could run OS/2. They managed to sell a whopping 11 boards.

    While Windows for Arm can't be such a massive flop as the Mach 20, I do won't who the hell would ever want to run Windows on something which doesn't have an x86 architecture. Whatever "advantage" comes from using Arm in power savings or speed is negated by having to emulate x86 for the majority of stuff that makes Windo

    • If Microsoft had sense they would have shifted to some kind of universal binary format (that compiles natively when first run) years ago so that software was largely agnostic of CPU architecture.

      The .NET Framework [wikipedia.org] (pronounced as "dot net") is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until being superseded by the cross-platform .NET project. It includes a large class library called Framework Class Library (FCL) and provides language interoperability (each language can use code written in other languages) across several programming languages. Programs written for

      • by _merlin ( 160982 )

        .NET is weird - you still need to produce separate .NET binaries for each architecture. The only real success story for building an OS around a virtual machine and changing CPU architectures underneath is IBM System-i (formerly AS/400) with the TIMI virtual machine. They've had multiple transparent CPU architecture changes without breaking application compatibility.

        • The only real success story for building an OS around a virtual machine and changing CPU architectures underneath is IBM System-i (formerly AS/400) with the TIMI virtual machine. They've had multiple transparent CPU architecture changes without breaking application compatibility.

          Those CPU architecture changes have come with hardware translation glued on the front end of the processor. The hard work is being done in silicon, not in software. You can't just run the system on a random CHRP or PREP PPC machine for example despite the underlying CPU having been PPC. Even if you had drivers for the system the CPU wouldn't do what is needed.

          • by _merlin ( 160982 )

            There's no hardware doing translation for AS/400 or System-i. Application software is built for the TIMI virtual machine. It presents all memory and storage as a flat 128-bit address space. The operating system recompiles the TIMI virtual machine code to native code on demand, and caches the native code. It's like Android's ART long before Android existed.

            The original AS/400 CPU was a 48-bit CISC architecture derived from System/38 called IMPI. They started developing a replacement called C-RISC that e

      • by DrXym ( 126579 )

        .NET is not a universal binary in the sense I meant, it's a high level language runtime. What I meant was something that was like LLVM bitcode - a close to machine code representation that can be turned into actual machine code the first time the operating system runs it. So I might have a 7z.exe, or an openoffice.exe, or a firefox.exe each with a bunch of DLLs but they're not 32-bit, or 64-bit or x86 or Arm, they're bitcode. The OS sees this, and produces a native exe & dlls which are run thereafter. I

    • by vbdasc ( 146051 )

      A very long time ago, Microsoft released a board for Intel 8088 PCs called the Mach 20 which jacked the computer up to a 80286 so it could run OS/2. They managed to sell a whopping 11 boards.

      Yet, several years before that, Microsoft released another board for Apple ][ which added a Z80 CPU so it could run CP/M. And this board was a massive success. So, you can win once in a game, and lose another time. My point is, Apple users happily used this hardware to run something their computer wasn't supposed to. Everyone has his preferences.

  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @02:54PM (#64346667)

    Privacy invasion on non-x86 platforms at last!

    • Google should now get ahead of the curve and release Chrome on Windows 11 on RISC-V!

      No such product from Microsoft yet exists, thankfully. :)

  • All the Surface models with ARM processors have been discontinued.

  • I have an ARM-based Samsung Book Go laptop and I have to say it's a piece of crap. Terrible screen and slow as shit. I'd install Linux on it but there's no support for most of its drivers. At least it could run ARM-native Firefox. Running non-ARM-native programs is just painful.

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