Google updates to Chrome 57, adds WebAssembly support and CSS Grid Layout specs

By Mark Coppock Published March 10, 2017

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WebAssembly is a portable code format under development that aims to speed up web apps and create support for cross-browser languages other than JavaScript. Apps created with WebAssembly should run faster and use less code, allowing for faster delivery.

Firefox 52 was recently released with support for WebAssembly and now Google released Chrome 57 with support for the same. WebAssembly support was available in beta versions of Chrome and now it is available to everyone, Liliputing reports.

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If you want to check out what WebAssembly is capable of accomplishing, then you can fire up Chrome or Firefox and play some games. Tanks! Demo and Cube 2 are two examples, but make sure your browser has updated first before attempting to run either of them. Otherwise, you will get either a crash or an error message.

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Chrome 57 also supports the new CSS Grid Layout specification, which makes it easier for web designers to create two-dimensional layouts using grids. Intended to provide for responsive user interface designs, the new layout allows grid elements to span multiple columns or rows. Developers can name CSS grid regions, which should make it easier for others to understand the layout code used to develop web pages.

Google also fixed up the usual bugs in the latest version of Chrome and enhanced some features in Chrome for Android. For example, progressive web apps can now be added to the Android home screen and app drawer, and Google has added a new Media Session API letting developers create custom media notifications that allow for handling media-related events like seeking through or changing tracks.

To get the latest version of Chrome, go to the menu and select Help > About Google Chrome. You will be looking for version 57.0.2987.98. If you were using Chrome when the update was installed, then you will need to relaunch to switch to the new version.

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Computing Writer

Mark Coppock is a Freelance Writer at Digital Trends covering primarily laptop and other computing technologies. He has…

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