Google has rolled out new updates for Google Chrome on Mac, Windows, Linux and Chromebooks adding memory and energy saver modes.
These two modes will help in freeing more RAM for other programs when you are not actively using the tabs you have opened on Chrome, while the energy-saver mode will lengthen your battery life by cutting down on how much power Chrome uses by restricting background activities and visual effects.
The two modes will be enabled by default. However, you can turn them off if you wish by navigating to Chrome settings on the sidebar and then selecting ‘Performance’
Taking a look at the Memory Saver addition, Google says that it will automatically free up memory from inactive tabs, which can then be used by other pages or applications on your PC. The inactive pages will still remain visible at the top of your browser, however, selecting one will cause it to reload first before you can interact with it.
Once a tab is made inactive, it will be indicated with a speedometer icon. When you navigate to it, a pop up will show up to indicate how much memory the mode save you while it was active on the specific tab in the following format, ‘While this tab was inactive, Memory Saver freed up XXX MB of memory for other tasks.’
Google says that with the memory feature active, Chrome will use up to 30% less memory which will come in handy to those people who have pretty limited RAM and still want to multitask.
The energy saving feature on the other hand will be indicated with a leaf icon at the top right corner of the browser from where you can easily toggle it off and on.
Furthermore, you can also tweak it to behave in certain ways such as turning on when the battery drops to below 20% or when your laptop or Chromebook is unplugged.
The tech giant notes that with the power saver feature on,you might experience some changes in gaming, and video performance such as frame drops. If this bothers you, just toggle the feature off when you do not need it.
The two modes are already active in Chrome 110, but if you are not seeing them yet, give it a few days then check again.
