Even though Android has supported 64-bit apps for about six years now, Google has just made the Chrome browser on Android a 64-bit app.

The move from 32-bit to 64-bit architecture should improve the mobile browser's performance and overall security, reports Android Police, which noticed the upgrade in the Chrome 85 release log. However, if you want to benefit from the upgrade, you must have Android 10 installed on your phone.

In the short term, you won't notice a significant improvement in speed. However, the overall performance and efficiency of Chrome for Android will improve, meaning that the browser will be able to accommodate future 64-bit-centric features and potential extensions. And a more efficient browser would help extend the battery life of Android phones a bit longer.

The reason for this performance improvement is that most modern smartphones use chips with 64-bit architecture at their core. Therefore, having 64-bit apps can improve performance between silicon and software. By having more bits to process, 64-bit apps can handle more data than 32-bit software.

More importantly, 64-bit browsers are more secure than 32-bit browsers because 64-bit programs have a much larger address space randomly placed in memory. This means that it is more difficult for malware or hackers to guess their location in memory, making it harder for them to carry out attacks that attempt to exploit software vulnerabilities. This is one reason why 64-bit versions of Windows are more secure than previous 32-bit versions.

Google appears to be distributing the beta Chrome 85 update to some Android users, but it is unclear why they are getting it before others. There is also no way to encourage Android to update to the latest beta version of Chrome.

However, everyone else can be satisfied with the knowledge that the native Android browser is more efficient and secure. However, we don't know why it took Google so long to move to 64-bit architecture in the first place.