Inactive background tabs have been troubling Chrome desktop users for quite a while now. Unlike the mobile version of the browser, tabs on the desktop variant use performance-intensive JavaScript code and leave a horrendous effect on the performance and battery life of the device.
However, in a major performance upgrade, Google has started throttling background tabs in Chrome 57, just like the mobile version. The feature restricts inactive tabs in the background and keeps a check on a number of resources deployed – cutting down power and performance depletion by a significant margin.
Background tab throttling was originally planned for Chrome 56, but due to some reason it started breaking web pages and was ultimately put off. However, version 57 brings it perfectly with a time budget for every background tab.
How does tab throttling work on Chrome?
If a tab is in the background for 10 seconds, the budget comes into play and the run time off the starts getting subtracted from the budget. In the current version, the time budget continuously regenerates at 0.01 seconds, but this would probably get changed in coming releases.
Google also noted that while throttling restricts power consumption and cuts the number of busy background tabs 25%, it would not work to on those playing audio or having real-time connects like WebSockets and WebRTC.
Chrome 57 started rolling earlier this month and should be available for pull on Android as well as desktop. If already not available, the update would come on your device very soon.