Google has released a version of Chrome Canary that runs natively on Windows PCs with an Arm64 processor. This eliminates the need for such computers to emulate Chrome, which should lead to performance improvements.
The latest Google Chrome Canary build, version 123, provides support for Arm64, writes Windows Central. This required users of a Windows PC with Arm SoC to emulate the Chrome browser, which results in lower performance. It is not yet clear when the stable version of Chrome will be able to run natively on such PCs, but that will probably happen in March.
The Chrome browser was already available natively on other Arm-based platforms, including Linux and iOS and Mac. Chrome’s source code, Chromium, has supported Windows PCs running the Arm64 architecture for some time. The same goes for some other browsers, such as Firefox and Edge.
There aren’t many Windows PCs available with an Arm processor yet, although it’s expected that the upcoming release of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processor could change that. This successor to the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is said to come close to Apple’s M chips in terms of performance. Although Qualcomm is currently the only manufacturer that has launched Arm chips for Windows PCs, Reuters wrote a few months ago that AMD and Nvidia are also working on Windows processors that use the Arm architecture.