Lite mode is a feature of Google Chrome for Android

Nov 21, 2019 15:29 GMT  ·  By

While there are so many fully-featured browsers on Android, Google Chrome is the leading browser here, serving as the preferred daily driver for the majority of mobile users.
 

And because it has such a large userbase, Google Chrome comes with an impressive feature lineup which includes everything from an advanced security arsenal to tools whose purpose is to speed up browsing.

Despite being supposed to reduce the time needed for pages to load and help reduce data usage, Google Chrome’s Lite mode isn’t necessarily a feature that everyone uses. Or at least, a feature that everyone knows about, that is.

Lite mode is, in essence, an engine that helps reduce mobile data usage and increase page loading time with a rather simple approach. In just a few words, Lite mode sends the pages that you want to load to Google and then back to your device without the heavy components that would have slowed down the loading and eat up unnecessary mobile data.

First of all, let’s see a few more details about how Lite mode works.

So technically, when you enter a website in the Google Chrome address bar, Lite mode sends the page to Google servers. Google then analyzes the content of the page and simplifies it as much as possible by removing the components that you don’t need. This doesn’t necessarily mean the website would end up looking differently because Google’s system attempts to keep the look and feel of each page as much as possible.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t Google seeing everything I do online if this feature is enabled?

In theory, it does. But Google says the connection between the browser and the proxy server that takes care of the whole thing is encrypted, albeit some information is still sent, including here the URL, usage, and performance statistics of the websites. These, Google says, help the company determine the pages that load slowly and make its engine more effective when it comes to the performance boost.

“Request URLs are logged, but Cookie and If-None-Match headers are stripped from the logs (and cookies are never seen in the case of HTTPS pages). Additionally, the content of proxied pages is cached but not logged. The logs are not associated with your Google Account, and the entire log entry is removed within 14 days. These logs are also governed by standard Google search logging policies,” Google says.

Now let’s detail how you enable Lite mode in Google Chrome.

Doing this is quite simple actually. Simply launch Google Chrome on your Android device and follow this path:


Google Chrome > More > Settings > Advanced > Lite mode > Tap toggle
Once Lite mode is enabled, the same menu should then provide you with information on how much data you’ve saved. Similar statistics are provided right in the settings menu of Google Chrome when tapping the more button in the main UI.

But there are also a few other things that you need to know about Google Chrome’s Lite mode.

First of all, it doesn’t work in the private browsing mode simply because what you do here is supposed to remain… well… private.

Then, it doesn’t work on internal websites because the data is supposed to be sent to Google, so unless the page is available online, the company’s servers cannot access them.

And of course, because the page goes through Google’s proxy server, some site features may not work exactly as expected. One of them is the location finder, as pages might not be able to determine your location when the page is sent to Google.

Google Chrome Lite mode is exclusive to Android and is not available in desktop and iOS versions of the browser.

Photo Gallery (2 Images)

Google Chrome Lite mode
Google Chrome Lite mode
Open gallery