Chrome 90 for desktop began rolling out yesterday and if you missed it, you aren’t alone. There aren’t a ton of big, new features for end users to get excited about and that is a bit expected with the latest version. With Chrome OS turning 10 as the Chrome 89 upgrade cycle hit last month, tons of new features and additions showed up to be a part of the celebration. With those extra bits and pieces all arriving in the last update, it is par for the course to see a less feature-packed upgrade this time around. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t important changes to consider, and the new AV1 encoder for WebRTC is probably the biggest one.
What are WebRTC and AV1 and why should you care?
Again, this Chrome update has a lot going on under the hood that end users will benefit from but likely not need to know about. This AV1 encoder appear that way to many users glancing over the latest changes, but I promise the impact will be felt by just about everyone that uses Chrome. In order to understand why, you need to have a basic understanding of WebRTC and what it does.
