In terms of user base, Chrome undeniably pushes past Microsoft's Edge, Mozilla's Firefox, and Opera by a mile, making it quite the most popular web browser of choice for millions of users using the web every day. While that's true, Chrome, however, fails to charm even a slight bit in terms of power consumption and memory usage, with it often the culprit of battery drain and performance hiccups.
Version 57 Of Chrome Makes It Friendlier To Batteries, CPUs
With Chrome 57, those caveats will be no more. Released last week for Mac, Windows, and Linux, the latest version of Chrome introduces background tab throttling, which significantly reduces the power consumption of each open tabs. The resulting impact should deliver 25 percent less busy background tabs, according to Google.
By contrast, Chrome on Android devices already heavily throttle, and in some instances even kill, background tabs, but the desktop version of Chrome has so far allowed background tabs to run gung-ho, hogging performance and battery whenever they want, which takes a toll especially on those using laptops.
Google originally planned to throttle background tabs as early as Chrome 56, according to Android Police, but because of concerns that it would break a large amount of web pages, it was stashed on the back burner. But the feature has finally been implemented into Chrome 57.
How Background Throttling On Chrome 57 Works
Here's how background throttling on Chrome for Desktop works: imagine that each open tab on the browser has a time budget, in seconds, for running timers. If a tab is put into the background and stays there for more than 10 seconds, the time budget is put into effect. When the timer begins running, the run time is subtracted from the time budget, which regenerates at a set rate per second, resulting in a more efficient use of power.
Of course, some exceptions still apply, set in place to prevent specific tabs, such as those playing audio, from breaking.
Moreover, in version 57 of Chrome, the browser will delay timers to limit CPU load to 1 percent of a core if a particular application uses too much processing power in the background. The team behind Chrome also hopes that developers of web pages will adjust their performance accordingly, relying on new APIs for service workers to do background tasks, instead of simply keeping tabs active at all times.
Long story short, this all means that in the end, users can finally rely on Chrome not heavily hogging their laptop's memory and battery. They would simply need to update Chrome to the latest version.
Other Changes To Chrome With Version 57
Apart from the new welcome addition of background throttling, version 57 of Chrome for iOS also comes with a reading list functionality. Tap the "Share" menu and hit the option to "read later" for later offline viewing. A similar feature is already available to Android for Chrome users.
Google Chrome is a free download for iOS and Android.
Have you tried Chrome 57? Has it manifested any significant differences in handling background tabs, particularly with its impact on your laptop's battery and performance? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments section below!
