improved
Synthetic update: Chrome 88, Firefox 85, Lighthouse 7.2
about 3 years ago by Mark Zeman
Updated test agents will be rolled on Monday 1 March (NZDT) to all regions. They include updates to several pieces of core software, including:
- Chrome has been updated from version 84 to 88
- Firefox has been updated from version 78 to 85
- Lighthouse has been updated from version 6.1.1 to 7.2.0
- SpeedCurve now uses Lighthouse's own simulated throttling to more closely match how Lighthouse runs in other environments. This should not have a noticeable impact on your Lighthouse scores.
There have been several changes in Chrome that may affect your metrics, including some general performance improvements as well as changes to some Web Vitals metrics. While we can't predict how these changes will affect your pages, in general, we have noticed the following trends:
- Lighthouse performance scores are generally consistent, but are lower for some pages due to LCP and CLS changes mentioned below.
- CPU scripting time and other CPU-bound metrics like First CPU Idle are slightly lower (JS execution is faster).
- CPU layout time is lower (layouts are faster).
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is slightly higher for some pages. This is more pronounced on mobile.
- Largest Contentful Paint is higher for some pages.