Google’s upcoming Chrome release could be good for Windows on ARM devices that can run MacBooks and Chromebooks
Google Chrome is coming to Windows 11 devices running on ARM processors. A new version of the browser has been released via the Canary release channel that allows users with ARM-based devices to use Chrome natively – instead of having to use an emulator (which brings its own complexity and performance issues).
ARM-based mobile devices are already very common, and ARM processors and ARM-based chips (such as Apple’s M1, M2, and M3 silicon chips) are becoming increasingly common in devices such as PCs. Unfortunately, those using Windows on a device with an ARM chip could not use Chrome natively and would have to use a workaround such as Chrome in emulation mode.
This isn’t the end of the world, but when you emulate a virtual device within your device, you rely on the processing limitations of the virtual device. This limited how well Chrome performed on ARM-64 processor devices until now, thanks to the latest release on the Canary Channel, which is intended for very early and potentially unstable versions of Google Chrome, and which users can download and test at their discretion.
Chrome, an open-source web browser project developed and maintained primarily by Google, has supported the ARM-64 architecture for many years. Strangely enough, Google Chrome itself (which is based on Chromium) is available for most ARM-oriented operating systems – except Windows. It is uncertain why Google Chrome has taken so much time to support Windows on ARM-based computers. Google has two operating systems designed to run on ARM hardware – Android for mobile devices and ChromeOS for Chromebooks – and Windows on ARM is a direct competitor, which could be a (rather cynical) reason.
MSPowerUser investigated it himself whether this Canary version actually worked on a machine with an ARM processor running a recent version of Windows 11, and found that it worked on at least one such device with an older Snapdragon 835 SoC processor.
What to consider before downloading and installing
It’s worth remembering that even if you have an ARM-based Windows 11 device, this is a Canary Channel build that you should consider carefully before downloading and installing. It is prone to instability and is specifically intended as Google’s first round of third-party testing for Chrome. It will likely make its way through the slightly less frequent, but more tested and more stable release channels. If you have an ARM-based Windows 11 device and aren’t a tester or developer, it’s probably worth waiting for one of these later releases.
This release is not far from Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon -based MacBooks.
As more devices are offered with ARM processors running Windows, we could see ARM processors continue to play an important role in PCs and laptops – and challenge the dominance of Intel and AMD. Extending Google Chrome support to these devices could make this possible, and I’d bet other processor manufacturers (cough, Intel) are taking notice.