Amidst the entire Arm move from Microsoft
Windows
and Qualcomm’s latest X Elite chipset that is set to power the next generation of Arm-based Windows PCs,
has started testing a new version of
Chrome
for Windows on Arm.
Google has reportedly started testing the Arm version of Chrome on Windows in the latest version of
Chrome Canary
build. The Verge has confirmed that Chrome's latest Canary version comes with support for Arm64.
Chromium version of Edge supports Arm
Microsoft’s Windows native browser -- Edge -- has been updated to support Arm devices long back.
However, until now, we never saw any signs from Google to support the Arm platform for Windows. However, Google does support the new M series chipsets from
Apple
and offers a native Apple Silicon version of the browser. And, the company also has a version of Chrome for Chromebooks that runs on Arm-based chipsets as well as Intel chips.
App limitation for Windows on Arm
While Microsoft has made the Arm version of Windows 11 available, only a handful of devices are currently available in the market. However, the biggest challenge beyond the options of the Arm-based Windows 11 devices is the lack of app support. For instance, there’s one browser available and that’s Edge for Windows 11 on Arm.
Now, this is because most of the browsers rely on Google’s Widevine digital rights management (DRM) system and Google itself hasn’t made the switch, leaving others to not offer their browsers on Arm-based Windows PCs.
Microsoft and Qualcomm’s Arm-PC push
Both Microsoft and Qualcomm have been working on Arm-based solutions for PCs. Qualcomm’s latest chipset -- X Elite -- that comes with Orion CPUs claims to offer the fastest possible performance and efficiency and even beat Apple’s M series along with Intel and AMD processors in terms of performance.
Also, Microsoft has been pushing the Arm-PCs and has even launched its Surface device already. We expect this entire push to take shape this year.
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