Chrome ships WebGPU (developer.chrome.com)

Article summary

Chrome has shipped WebGPU, a new web graphics API that allows for high-performance 3D graphics and data-parallel computation on the web. WebGPU offers more advanced GPU features and provides first-class support for general computations on the GPU compared to WebGL. The API is available by default in Chrome 113 and is expected to be supported in other browsers soon. WebGPU has the potential to improve performance and enable new use cases, but also raises concerns about fingerprinting and privacy.

Main themes

• WebGPU
• fingerprinting
• privacy
• browser security
• performance
• hardware acceleration

What commenters say

• WebGPU's ability to access advanced GPU features may make it easier to fingerprint users, potentially compromising their privacy.
• The benefits of WebGPU, such as improved performance and new use cases, may outweigh the potential risks to user privacy.
• Google's commitment to not using fingerprinting for ad targeting is not convincing, and the company may still benefit from the feature.
• Fingerprinting is a inherent trade-off for extracting maximum performance from a user's hardware, and it may not be possible to completely prevent it.
• Some commenters argue that putting unnecessary features behind a permission or using a browser with built-in fingerprinting resistance, such as LibreWolf, may be a more effective way to protect user privacy.
• Others suggest that campaign to make fingerprinting illegal in as many jurisdictions as possible may be a more constructive approach to addressing the issue.
• The performance impact of implementing measures to prevent fingerprinting, such as running computations in fixed time, may be too restrictive and undermine the point of supporting hardware acceleration.