If you feel that the standard version of Google Chrome gets a little heavier with each update, you're not alone. The people at Mountain View always have to prioritize stability, and that means some performance details can fall by the wayside. Fortunately, there are projects like Thorium that adopt several modifications during compilation and offer a healthy number of builds compatible with different processors and operating systems.
And in another episode of Windows is not the only one dragging its feet on our computer, any performance idea requires precise software selection, and that includes adopting lighter alternatives or those with additional optimizations. Conventional web browsers are far from that profile, and being one of the most used pieces of software these days, the benefits are noticeable almost immediately. This brings us to the doors of the Thorium project, a Chromium-based browser with several patches and low-level changes during its compilation phase.
Thorium: Optimized Chromium
The full list of modifications can be consulted here, but in general terms, Thorium has three builds: AVX2, AVX, and SSE3. The first two focus on more modern processors, while the SSE3 build is ideal for older machines that lack any AVX/AVX2 instructions. Thorium achieves this without sacrificing support for technologies like Widevine and proprietary codecs, so the main web services should work without issues. The same goes for access to the Chrome Web Store: installing extensions is just a couple of clicks away, and Thorium requires no extra configuration.
Of course, Windows is just one of the many operating systems the browser supports. Thorium extends to several flavors of Linux, macOS, Android, and also special builds for Raspberry Pi, Windows on Arm, and 32-bit editions for Windows 7/8.1/Server 2012. In these cases, compatibility can be a bit more limited... but it's truly a miracle that there are Chromium forks running under Pentium 4 chips.
Finally, the official Thorium page explains the process that enables automatic updates on Linux with .deb packages, but this advantage is not available on Windows, so we must periodically visit their GitHub profile to get updates. In my opinion, it's a minor inconvenience, but it's necessary to mention it before downloading anything. Links below!
(Editor's note: The equivalent of Thorium for Firefox is Mercury)
Official page: Click here
Builds for Windows: Click here
x86 builds for W7/W8.1: Click here
How to download files from GitHub: Click here
