Google Chrome 133 is expected to launch with a new energy-saving feature called freezing. According to the Chrome Developer blog, eligible CPU-intensive background tabs will be frozen when the computer is in energy saving mode. This should allow users to eke out more battery life from their devices when away from a charger.
The Chrome browser, which aims to be easy to use, will try to minimize any disruption with this new feature by only freezing background tabs that meet specific criteria and are CPU-intensive. Google said that freezing a tab is different from unloading a tab from memory; when you go back to the tab it will resume any queued tasks without loss of state.
For anyone with technical knowledge wondering about this feature, Google says that freezing will suspend task execution on affected web pages; including event handlers, timers, and promise resolvers.
The search giant said that the new feature will aim to avoid freezing 'efficiently implemented' web apps such as email or chat clients, or calendar apps that generate notifications. Web pages that provide audio or video conferencing capabilities and those that control external devices will also not be frozen to avoid disruption.
For developers out there in charge of running websites, Google says that if your page doesn't do anything in the background, it likely won't be impacted by freezing. However, if your site does have background functionality, then you should try to minimize the CPU usage so that it's not considered a CPU-intensive website and made eligible for freezing. Google has a list of tips for anyone looking to optimize their websites in its announcement under the 'How can I prepare my website?' header.
Chrome 133 will be released in February, so users won't need to wait long for this cool new feature.
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