What Made Chrome 2021 a Game‑Changer for Web Developers?

Article sourced from Alibaba Frontend Standardization Group.

Chrome was first released on September 2, 2008, featuring a multi‑process architecture, the new V8 engine that boosted JavaScript performance, and a clean, user‑friendly UI.

We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

Sundar Pichai’s leadership on Chrome later propelled him to become Google CEO.

Chrome’s dominance has driven many web technologies forward, including V8, ECMAScript 2015, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, QUIC, HTTPS, WebAssembly, and WebGPU.

Chrome 2021 Releases

2021‑01‑19: Chrome 88 – removed Flash.

2021‑03‑02: Chrome 89 – introduced WebNFC.

2021‑04‑13: Chrome 90 – added AV1 Encoder.

2021‑05‑25: Chrome 91 – supported WebAssembly SIMD.

2021‑07‑20: Chrome 92 – no major highlights.

2021‑08‑31: Chrome 93 – Error Cause feature.

2021‑09‑21: Chrome 94 – introduced WebGPU.

2021‑10‑19: Chrome 95 – added WebAssembly Exception Handling.

2021‑11‑16: Chrome 96 – added WebAssembly Reference Types.

Flash was finally discontinued in 2021, ending an era of Flash games and animations.

WebAssembly became significantly stronger in 2021, with Chrome adding SIMD, Exception Handling, and Reference Types, enabling high‑performance applications like Photoshop on the web.

WebAssembly SIMD

SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) allows a single instruction to process multiple data elements, greatly accelerating vector operations in video, audio, image processing, encryption, AI, and more.

Chrome 91 enabled WebAssembly SIMD by adding the v128 type and related operators, providing a subset of CPU‑specific SIMD instructions across platforms.

WebAssembly Exception Handling

Introduced experimentally in Chrome 90 and officially in Chrome 95, this adds native try/catch syntax to WebAssembly, reducing glue code and improving performance.

Name

Opcode

Description

try

0x06

begins a block which can handle thrown exceptions

catch

0x07

begins the catch block of the try block

catch_all

0x19

begins the catch_all block of the try block

delegate

0x18

begins the delegate block of the try block

throw

0x08

creates and throws an exception

rethrow

0x09

rethrows the exception on top of the stack

Native exception handling can cut code size by ~30% and improve performance by a similar margin.

WebAssembly Reference Types

Chrome 96 added Reference Types, allowing WebAssembly to handle complex data like strings and objects via the externref type, paving the way for further proposals such as GC and Interface Types.

QUIC Protocol

In 2021 QUIC became an IETF RFC, forming the basis of HTTP/3 and combining TCP, TLS, and HTTP/2 functionalities into a single UDP‑based protocol.

QUIC offers reliable communication, TLS 1.3 encryption, and HTTP/2‑style multiplexing, addressing TCP’s head‑of‑line blocking and enabling faster, more flexible deployments.

WebGPU

Chrome 94 began trialing WebGPU, a low‑level GPU API that supersedes WebGL, offering higher performance for graphics and data‑parallel compute such as machine learning.

Other Front‑End News

Vercel raised $150 million, valuing the company at $2.5 billion.

Figma secured $200 million, reaching a $10 billion valuation.

Rust continues to grow in the web ecosystem, powering projects like Deno, Next.js, and experimental Chrome components.

Conclusion

Observing Chrome’s 2021 progress shows the browser still fulfills its original mission to drive the web forward, enhancing speed, capabilities, and application scenarios, which bodes well for the future of web development.