Chrome Gets a Speed Boost, But Still Eats Your RAM for Breakfast

Google's Chrome browser just got faster — at least in the lab. The company reports its latest test version (139) smashed records on the Speedometer 3.0 benchmark, showing a 10% speed jump compared to last August. Under-the-hood work on memory management, caching efficiency, and data structures is supposedly making pages load quicker and the browser feel more responsive.

The elephant in the room, though? Chrome's infamous appetite for RAM. Despite past and present optimization efforts, complaints about Chrome hogging memory – especially on PCs with limited RAM – keep flooding user forums.

Google even crunched the global numbers: if every user saves 10 minutes daily, that adds up to 58 million hours saved per year. But for many, the real question is whether those saved seconds actually feel noticeable when Chrome's still putting a heavy strain on their system.

So, while Chrome's benchmark scores are undeniably climbing, the old debates rage on. Concerns about its memory hunger and the lack of head-to-head comparisons with rivals make this news hard to take at face value. For users on weaker machines, it might be worth asking: are flashy benchmark numbers more important than a genuinely smooth, lag-free experience — especially if it comes with a hefty RAM bill.