Chrome 57 to limit power consumption for background tabs

If you use Chrome as your main browser, you’d be happy to hear that the latest version throttles background tabs to prolong battery life on your device.

If you are like me and rely almost exclusively on Chrome, you might have noticed that Google’s browser consumes a lot of battery power. That’s partially due to your background tabs – tabs that are open but aren’t being actively used. In fact, according to Google, background tabs consume “a third of Chrome’s power usage on desktop.” Well, that’s about to change with the latest Chrome update.

Starting with Chrome 57, Google is looking to reduce unnecessary power consumption for background tabs but points out that audio or real-time connections won’t be affected:

Chrome will throttle individual background tabs by limiting the timer fire rate for background tabs using excessive power… Chrome 57 will delay timers to limit average CPU load to 1% of a core if an application uses too much CPU in background. Tabs playing audio or maintaining real-time connections like WebSockets or WebRTC won’t be affected.

According to the search giant, the new throttling mechanism can lead to 25 percent fewer busy background tabs; however, the company’s ultimate goal is to fully suspend these unused tabs and make them rely on new APIs, so you can expect to see future updates bringing even more battery-efficient changes. Chrome 57 has been out for some time now, so make sure to check and see if your laptop’s Chrome browser is up to date!

Which is your default browser? Have you noticed any difference after Chrome 57 update? Let us know by leaving a comment down below!