A guide to measuring Core Web Vitals, Cloudflare Pages, and what's new in Chrome 91 | Front End News #027
Tags: frontendnews, news
Published: 2021-04-28 17:14:08

> **NOTE:** This is issue #027 of my newsletter, which went live on Monday, April 26th. If you find this information useful and interesting and you want to receive future issues as they are published, ahead of everyone else, I invite you to join the subscriber list at [frontendnexus.com](https://frontendnexus.com/).

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The Core Web Vitals will soon start to count in Google search ranking and you need to be prepared. Find out how to start measuring these metrics with the handy guide by Smashing Magazine.

Next, anyone can now host their jamstack website with Cloudflare Pages. And the software releases of this week include Ember 3.26, Grunt v1.4.0, and more. Also, I will not publish an issue next week, as we are celebrating Easter in Romania.


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## An In-Depth Guide To Measuring Core Web Vitals

Google wants to begin integrating Core Web Vitals in search results ranking from June this year. And if you want to avoid any negative backlash, you should start measuring them for your website and, if needed, look into improving the score.

Smashing Magazine published a very detailed guide on what these values represent, how they are measured, and how they are used together with Real User Metrics inside The Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). Make sure you're seated comfortably, for you'll need some time to digest all the info. Enjoy!

- [An In-Depth Guide To Measuring Core Web Vitals](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/04/complete-guide-measure-core-web-vitals/)

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## Cloudflare Pages is now Generally Available

Jamstack is a popular platform at this moment for many types of websites. It's no wonder that more players want to offer specialized hosting services. And one such player is Cloudflare.

Cloudflare Pages has been available as a beta service since December 2020. Now, it is available for anyone and ready for your production needs. Their main advantages are their focus on collaboration and, of course, the raw power of Cloudflare's network.

If you are considering building a Jamstack website, then you should have a look at Cloudflare Pages and see if it's a good option for you.

- [Cloudflare Pages is now Generally Available](https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-pages-ga/)

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## Browser news

### Brave

Brave can now be downloaded and installed by Windows desktop users via the Epic Games Store. They are not the first browser focusing on the gaming community - Opera GX had a similar approach last year. Only time will tell if they will be more successful.

- [Brave is the first browser featured on the Epic Games Store](https://brave.com/epic-store/)

### Chrome

Chrome 91 DevTools will bring many changes and improvements over the current toolset. Here are just a few of the highlights:

- the Performance panel will display information related to the Core Web Vitals
- you can now visualize CSS `scroll-snap` alignment
- image previews in the Elements panel now display more information on the image: rendered size, rendered aspect ratio, intrinsic size, intrinsic aspect ratio, and file size.

The full set of changes can be reviewed in the following article:

- [What's New In DevTools (Chrome 91)](https://developer.chrome.com/blog/new-in-devtools-91/)

Chrome 91 will bring more than just improvements to the DevTools. It will integrate version 9.1 of the V8 JavaScript engine, support for ES Modules in service workers, and more. I just couldn't find any reference about the handwriting recognition they are boasting about in the title of the announcement.

- [Chrome 91: Handwriting Recognition, WebXR Plane Detection, and More](https://blog.chromium.org/2021/04/chrome-91-handwriting-recognition-webxr.html)

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## Software updates and Releases

- **[Ember 3.26](https://blog.emberjs.com/ember-3-26-released/)** - a JavaScript framework for creating ambitious web applications
- **[Grunt v1.4.0](https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt/releases/tag/v1.4.0)** - The JavaScript Task Runner
- **[Node 16](https://nodejs.medium.com/node-js-16-available-now-7f5099a97e70)** -
- **[pdf-to-printer v2.0.0](https://github.com/artiebits/pdf-to-printer/releases/tag/v2.0.0)** - Print PDF files from Node.js and Electron
- **[Strapi v3.6.0](https://github.com/strapi/strapi/releases/tag/v3.6.0)** - Open source Node.js Headless CMS

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## Wrapping things up

As I mentioned in the beginning, I will take a break from the newsletter next week as we celebrate Easter here in Romania. This means I will get back to you with a double issue on May 10th.

Have a great and productive (couple of) week(s), keep yourselves safe, and I will see you next time!