The Chrome 57 update brings some changes to the way the web browser handles the background tabs.
A new throttling policy has been implemented to make the Chrome tabs less juicy when running in the background. These tabs are responsible for around one-third of the computer’s power consumption.
The Page Visibility API is used to know if a Chrome tab is in the background or not. For resource-consuming background tabs, Chrome now makes sure only 1% of a CPU core is put to work. However, this throttling won’t be done in the case of background tabs running audio and video or having WebRTC and WebSockets connections.
With the new implementation, Google has noticed around 25% less busy background tabs, thus, giving you some extra battery life. Their ultimate goal is to suspend background tabs completely and use new APIs to get things done.
But before that gets implemented, you might want to get your hands on The Great Suspender for Chrome. And don’t forget to drop your feedback.