Chrome 57: throttling of background tabs begins

[Batu69]

Google Chrome 57 is the first stable version of the web browser for the desktop that ships with the background tab throttling power optimization feature.

Google announced back in January 2017 that its Chrome web browser would start to throttle expensive background pages in the near future.

 

This change is now live in Chrome Stable. According to the new blog post on the official Chromium Blog, Chrome "will throttle individual background tabs by limiting the timer fire rate for background tabs using excessive power".

 

While timers of background tabs in Chrome were limited to run once per second already, the change throttles access to the CPU so that background tabs may use on average 1% of a core when they run in the background.

 

 

Google notes that tabs that run real-time applications such as audio playing in the background or WebRTC / WebSockets are not affected by the change.

The change leads to 25% "fewer busy background tabs" according to Google, but benchmarks for how that translates to power improvement has not been published by the company.

 

Users may opt out of the extra tab throttling right now by loading Chrome with the --disable-background-timer-throttling flag.

 

This is done in the following way on Windows machines:

1. Right-click on the Chrome icon in the taskbar.
2. Right-click on Chrome in the menu that opens, and select properties from it.
3. Add --disable-background-timer-throttling to the end of the target field. Make sure there is a space between the path and the flag, e.g. "C:\Users\Martin\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome SxS\Application\chrome.exe" --disable-background-timer-throttling

Google created the flag for "use cases like running test suites and other sanctioned heavy computations", but it is available to all users of the browser.

The company has long term plans for the feature (and we mean long term as the last entry of the roadmap is set to 2020+):

1. Explicit opt-outs (~Q2 2017, when FeaturePolicy ships)
2. Suspend all tasks on mobile (~Q2 2017)
3. Throttling non-timer tasks (~Q2 2017)
4. Budget-based throttling for offscreen frames (~Q3 2017)
5. Throttling web workers (~2018)
6. Suspend all background tabs (~2018)
7. Remove opt-outs (~2020+)

Google engineers plan to enable opt-outs that web apps and sites may use to opt-out from some forms of throttling. Also, in the second quarter of 2017, Google plans to throttle non-timer tasks, e.g. loading tasks, web workers in 2018, and to suspend all background tabs in 2018 as well.

 

Article source

[CrAKeN]

 

Google Chrome cuts down power consumption for all those background tabs you keep

 

The latest Chrome version has been tweaked to help you save some power. Everyone who uses this particular browser knows that Chrome is bad when it comes to power usage and terrible when it comes to memory usage. 

 

This time around, it seems that at least one of the issues has been fixed to a certain extent. "Starting in version 57, Chrome will throttle individual background tabs by limiting the timer fire rate for background tabs using excessive power," reads Google's post signed by Alexander Timin, software engineer with the Chromium team.

 

He says the changes were made to prolong battery life, for which purpose Chrome should minimize power impact from things users can't even see, including background tabs, which usually consume about a third of Chrome's power usage on the desktop.

 

Chrome 57 comes with a new throttling policy. The browser will delay timers to limit average CPU load to 1% of a core if an application uses too much CPU in the background. That does not include tabs playing audio or maintaining real-time connections like WebSockets or WebRTC.

 

25% improvement

"We've found that this throttling mechanism leads to 25% fewer busy background tabs. In the long-term, the ideal is for background tabs to be fully suspended and instead rely on new APIs for service workers to do work in the background," Timin adds.

 

The new Chrome 57 has been out for a few days already, and it can be downloaded at any time. Alternatively, you can update the Chrome you have already installed. If you're always on the go and need your laptop battery to keep on for just a little bit longer, then this is great news because your laptop may stay alive for that extra minute you need to get your work done.

 

Let's just hope they find ways to improve the overall impact of Chrome on the system.

 

Source

[SPECTRUM]

but still eat a lot of RAM -.-

[Batu69]

Topic has been merged.

[KRS]

As we get this news, we remember how heavy chrome was before. It has improved a lot, I still use chrome on computers.

[tao]

Efficient power usage is an important aspect of speed, one of Chrome’s key pillars. To prolong battery life, Chrome should minimize power impact from things users can’t see. This includes background tabs,  which consume a third of Chrome's power usage on desktop. Starting in version 57, Chrome will throttle individual background tabs by limiting the timer fire rate for background tabs using excessive power.

 

Chrome has focused on improving the user experience by throttling tab performance for many years. Like many browsers, Chrome has limited timers in the background to only run once per second. Via the new throttling policy, 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.

 

We've found that this throttling mechanism leads to 25% fewer busy background tabs. In the long-term, the ideal is for background tabs to be fully suspended and instead rely on new APIs for service workers to do work in the background. Chrome will continue to take steps in this direction to prolong users' battery life, while still enabling all the same experiences developers can build today.

 

<  Here >

 

[Batu69]

Topic moved from Technology News forum and merged.