New “Brotli” compression ready to fix Chrome woes

Google Chrome is the most popular web browser, but it still has its flaws. It kills my battery life, for example, and seems to always be eating up more memory than it needs to. Google is working on improving the experience, and one of the firm’s engineers recently discussed a new algorithm that should make things much, much faster.

Google’s Ilya Girgorik recently said on Google+ that the company’s new compression algorithm “Brotli” is soon “coming to a Chrome browser near you.” According to The Verge, some of the improvements with the algorithm should help improve battery life, one of the major issues I’ve experienced while using Chrome on my laptop. A supporting document published by Girgorik also points to Brotli’s ability to handle web assets such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS about 17-25 percent better than gzip.

Girgorik didn’t provide a timeline for the launch but The Verge said we can expect the improvements “in the coming weeks.”