Page Lifecycle API now available in Chrome 68

Jul 31, 2018 08:14 GMT  ·  By

Google rolled out Chrome 68 browser last week, and one of the features that the company hasn’t described in detail in the original announcement is Page Lifecycle API.

In a technical analysis of this feature, Google explains that Page Lifecycle API can help Chrome 68 substantially reduce RAM usage, especially when multiple tabs are running, using an approach that’s also employed on smartphones.

This new functionality technically allows Google Chrome to suspend pages in the background and which you haven’t accessed for a while, cutting RAM and CPU usage and making the browser overall lighter on system resources.

Security improvements also part of the release

Page Lifecycle API is specifically aimed at low-powered devices where the biggest improvement is likely to be noticed, though it needs for developers themselves to implement support for it.

“Browsers today already do take active measures to conserve resources for pages in background tabs, and many browsers (especially Chrome) would like to do a lot more of this — to lessen their overall resource footprint,” Google explains. “The problem is developers currently have no way to prepare for these types of system-initiated interventions or even know that they're happening. This means browsers need to be conservative or risk breaking web pages.”

Our more tech-savvy users can read the full description of this feature, as well as guidance on how to support it in web apps, in the link above.

Google Chrome 68 also introduces new security improvements, with all HTTP pages now marked as not secure by default. This particular change is part of Google’s push for a more secure web, encouraging developers to make the switch to HTTPS on their website.

All versions of the browsers, including mobile, come with the aforementioned improvement. As always, you can download Google Chrome for Windows, Linux, and macOS using these links.