Google says your Chrome tabs will soon load up to 10 percent faster
And you’ll be able to collapse and expand your tab groups
Google is improving the performance of tabs in Chrome, according to a new blog post, and the changes could lead to speed gains of up to 10 percent. “When you’re checking off one task after another from your to-do list, waiting even a few seconds while your tabs load can slow you down,” Google’s Alex Ainslie wrote.
Chrome will speed up loading times for active tabs by taking back resources from those that’ve been idle for awhile, according to a Chromium post. “We see improvements not only in loading speed but also battery and memory savings,” Chrome engineering director Max Christoff wrote.
Tab grouping, which Google announced back in May, will now allow you to collapse groups and expand them “so it’s easier to see the ones you need to access.” This has been the top feature request among people using tab groups.
Chrome is also adding tab previews (in beta right now), which will show you a thumbnail of the website in each tab as you hover over it. PDF support is getting more powerful too, with Ainslie promising that “over the next few weeks, you’ll be able to fill out PDF forms and save them with your inputs, directly from Chrome. If you open the file again, you can pick up where you left off.”
Other new incoming features include more finger-friendly tabs when using a laptop 2-in-1 in tablet mode and, on Android, if you start typing a site title into the url bar without realizing you’ve already got it open somewhere, you’ll now see a suggestion to switch to that existing tab.