Windows on Arm will need the world’s biggest browser if it hopes to succeed.
Google Chrome has begun testing a native version for Windows on Arm, according to reports, bringing the world’s most popular browser to one of the world’s niche operating systems — which may gain in importance in 2024.
Twitter/X user Pedro Justo confirmed that Google is offering Windows on Arm builds as part of its nightly Canary Channel, the latest Chrome beta. Other sources, including The Verge, have confirmed that the browser runs natively on Windows on Arm machines.
As commenters to Justo’s post noted, while this is a first for Chrome, this is not a first for Chromium — the open-sourced underpinnings of the Chrome browser. Microsoft Edge, which runs natively on Arm PCs, is built upon Chromium, and Chrome builds for Chromebooks are built on Chromium as well. Chrome, however, is integrated with Google’s apps and services, while Chromium is not. Chrome will run on existing Windows on Arm devices, but via emulation, which introduces a performance penalty and generally has made Microsoft Edge the preferred browser for Arm PCs.
Google’s release of Chrome as a nightly Canary build probably means that it will be released within the stable version of Chrome in a couple of months.
