A future update to Google Chrome would include a change that is completely invisible to users, while significantly improving web browsing speed.
Amidst Chrome updates fixing security flaws or adding useful privacy features, there are some that are focused onuser experience. Having a web browser full of options and secure is good. If it is fluid and ensures quick navigation, it’s better. Google teams tackle this regularly and, very often, the changes made are completely invisible to the user. On the other hand, the latter will notice that “it goes faster” compared to the last time.
The recently proposed modification is a good example of this observation. This involves affecting the behavior of BFCache, understand the “Back/Forward Cache”. This is what comes into play when you click on the buttons Previous Or Following from Chrome to switch web pages. The BFCache has the function of keep an image of visited web pages in memory in order to display them more quickly when you come back to them via Previous or Next. But a simple line of code can prevent this.
Chrome would see its performance boosted after this modification
When a developer creates a website, they can optionally include the “Cache-control: no-store” line of code. It tells the browser not to keep in cache, therefore in memory, the response sent by a server. This is particularly useful in terms of security, to prevent sensitive information from being kept, for example. Normally, this does not influence the BFCache, but in reality, it does. In other words, as soon as a site uses the “no-store” function, going to a previous page already visited takes longer because the BFCache does not have it in memory even though it should.
Also Read – Google Chrome will warn you when installed extensions are malware
This is precisely what Google wants to change: the BFCache would be active despite the presence of the cited line of code. The loading of previous and following pages would be accelerated. The developers specify that this will not be done at the expense of security. In order to test the impact of the change, it will first be implemented on a test channel before eventually being rolled out to all Chrome users.
Source: Bleeping Computer