Longer battery life and easier website permissions
November 6th, 2012 | Published in Google Chrome
A wise person once said, “Modern life is a constant search... for a power outlet.” With today’s new Chrome Stable release, we hope you can begin looking for more meaningful things.
We recently enabled GPU-accelerated video decoding for Chrome on Windows. Dedicated graphics chips draw far less power than a computer's CPU, so using GPU-accelerated video decoding while watching videos can increase battery life significantly.
In our tests [1], the battery lasted 25% longer when GPU-accelerated video decoding was enabled. Now Chrome users on Windows will experience longer battery life so they don’t get cut off while watching their favorite YouTube video on repeat.
You’ll also find it much easier to view and control any website’s permissions for capabilities such as geolocation, pop-ups, and camera/microphone access. This saves you from having to dig through settings pages to find these permissions. Now, simply click on the page/lock icon next to a website’s address in the omnibox to see a list of permissions and tweak them as you wish.
This latest release also includes an option to send a “do not track” request to websites and web services. The effectiveness of such requests is dependent on how websites and services respond, so Google is working with others on a common way to respond to these requests in the future.
Thanks to auto-updates, you will get these enhancements as we roll out the new release. If you don’t have Chrome yet, give it a spin.
[1] 1080p 30fps h.264 video on a Lenovo T400 laptop running Windows 7
We recently enabled GPU-accelerated video decoding for Chrome on Windows. Dedicated graphics chips draw far less power than a computer's CPU, so using GPU-accelerated video decoding while watching videos can increase battery life significantly.
In our tests [1], the battery lasted 25% longer when GPU-accelerated video decoding was enabled. Now Chrome users on Windows will experience longer battery life so they don’t get cut off while watching their favorite YouTube video on repeat.
You’ll also find it much easier to view and control any website’s permissions for capabilities such as geolocation, pop-ups, and camera/microphone access. This saves you from having to dig through settings pages to find these permissions. Now, simply click on the page/lock icon next to a website’s address in the omnibox to see a list of permissions and tweak them as you wish.
This latest release also includes an option to send a “do not track” request to websites and web services. The effectiveness of such requests is dependent on how websites and services respond, so Google is working with others on a common way to respond to these requests in the future.
Thanks to auto-updates, you will get these enhancements as we roll out the new release. If you don’t have Chrome yet, give it a spin.
[1] 1080p 30fps h.264 video on a Lenovo T400 laptop running Windows 7