Google Chrome users are expected to see browsers that are significantly quicker as the company rolls out a new technology designed to speed up load times.
Brotli, Google’s latest compression algorithm, is set to launch in the next stable Chrome release, according to Google Web performance engineer Ilya Grigorik. The tool will be between 20 and 26 percent more efficient than Chrome’s current compression algorithm, Zopfli. Brotli is a much smaller compressed size that will result in faster page loads; those using mobile devices are also likely to see benefits, such as lower data transfer fees and reduced battery usage.
Data compression minimizes information so that is takes up less space and is easier to transfer. When it’s compressed tightly, it has the capability to travel through the Internet quicker while using fewer resources.
Google has open-sourced Brotli, meaning other tech companies will be able to adopt the algorithm into their browsers as well. According to a study, Brotli has the top compression and decompression speeds and the smallest sizes compared to other compression algorithms. It shrinks to sizes 17 to 25 percent smaller than other methods and uses less processing power to do so.
“The smaller compressed size allows for better space utilization and faster page loads,” Zoltan Szabadka, a software engineer on Google’s compression team, wrote. “We hope that this format will be supported by major browsers in the near future.”
We can expect to see faster load times in Chrome very soon and in other browsers once the open-source algorithm is picked up. If you want to test it out for yourself, the code is available here.
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