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Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs

blog.strml.net

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Re: Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs

#71

Post by xigency »

dumbmatter wrote: post #60
xigency wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you supposed to do? Implement it as a single page application.

It is. But then you open it in multiple tabs, because that's how people use websites. Unless I'm supposed to re-implement tabs within my single page application and then force it to only let one tab run, which I guess is possible but horrible :)

If it opens in multiple tabs, then it isn't a pure SPA. (Relying on the browser tabs instead of tabs in your application.)

If you have several tabbed views, then you would include tabs in your application.

Re: Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs

#72

Post by croddin »

Spoom wrote: post #56
vdnkh wrote: post #26

This is going to destroy HLS playback in a background tab. Playing back HLS with JS is already a very cpu intensive, time-dependent process and we've already struggled with the current background tab throttling - a delay like this will all but kill playback or make it stutter to the point you'll wish it's dead instead. I commend Chrome for driving web standards but they've been a huge bully recently.

I don't believe it will. From https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink... : Background tabs usually do not have a visible impact for user (tabs with audio are always considered foregrounded).

Is that a workaround/loophole then? A tab can play silent or very quiet audio and then run unthrottled?

Re: Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs

#74

Post by dumbmatter »

Nycto wrote: post #17
dumbmatter wrote: post #4

What are we supposed to do about stuff this? Like I wrote a video game https://play.basketball-gm.com/ that lets you open multiple tabs for viewing multiple screens even while simulation is occurring in another tab. But Chrome recently stopped running the simulation if it's in a background tab. Putting my simulation code in a Shared Worker would be nice, except Safari and IE will never support it and it seems likely…

This isn't a full solution, but perhaps inter-tab communication would work? Use whichever tab is focused as the master, then other tabs send messages to the primary as they need work done. It wouldn't work when none of your tabs are focused, but perhaps that's an acceptable constraint.

That might work, but it's much more complicated and given the issues I'm already facing, I wouldn't want to rely on that communication actually happening (maybe background tab won't be able to send a signal to the foreground tab, since JS is apparently not running in the background tab).

Re: Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs

#75

Post by mark242 »

mcescalante wrote: post #8

It's awesome to see Chrome trying to improve performance for people with many tabs open, which is many of us. I use a LOT of tabs, and the best plugin has been The Great Suspender. Highly recommend it for anyone who wants memory & CPU back and keeps many tabs/windows open at once: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspende...

+1 recommendation for The Great Suspender. Works like a charm, noticeable difference on overall system performance.

Re: Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs

#76

Post by dumbmatter »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #61
dumbmatter wrote: post #4

What are we supposed to do about stuff this? Like I wrote a video game https://play.basketball-gm.com/ that lets you open multiple tabs for viewing multiple screens even while simulation is occurring in another tab. But Chrome recently stopped running the simulation if it's in a background tab. Putting my simulation code in a Shared Worker would be nice, except Safari and IE will never support it and it seems likely…

It would be dodgy hack, but another HN comment made reference to a statement that tabs playing audio are always considered "foregrounded": https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink...

I think I might actually try this lol

Re: Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs

#77

Post by gr3yh47 »

drinkjuice wrote: post #67
ryandrake wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess it's because most users would have no idea what to choose, would have no idea what the affect of each choice would be, and if you add more text to explain it, most users will not read it. Pop up the notification too often and it becomes a nuisance. Better IMO to bury the choice deep in settings or something, for power users, if you even offer the choice at all.

> I'd guess it's because most users would have no idea what to choose Sounds like you could kill two birds with one stone: allow a non-lame web and encourage users to learn what that means. We can't complain about tech illiterate users with one corner of the mouth and then make them decide what goes with the other. > if you add more text to explain it, most users will not read it They're not users. They're the blight…

> They're not users. They're the blight on the back of users. Why cater to them?

actually they are about 90%+ of users

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/

Re: Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs

#78

Post by jklinger410 »

lucb1e wrote: post #20

I like the change as a general idea but there obviously needs to be a manual override. Like, I don't want websites to access my camera without permission but obviously I want to allow some websites to do that. A similar permission could be used here and is perfectly backwards compatible: 1. a tab exceeds its quota and throttling kicks in; 2. you visit the tab to check why it stopped working; 3. you get a permission p…

Pinned tabs would be an easy solution for this.

"Don't throttle pinned tabs"

Re: Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs

#80

Post by dejawu »

drinkjuice wrote: post #50

How about displaying more info about the "weight" of a page, when it comes to downloaded assets, cookies / local storage, RAM and CPU usage? I know there are ass backwards and fugly ways to see all of that, but why can't I see a list of all open tabs, with columns of such info which I get to define and sort as I please? Why not have the option to that info pop up when hovering over a tab, and to show notification ico…

It's not everything you asked for, but as it stands Chrome does have a task manager (Shift + Esc) that shows CPU usage, Memory, and also how the tabs are grouped process-wise.
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