Google has a new idea to save energy in Chrome

To improve the autonomy of portable machines using Chrome, Google is looking at a new function allowing its browser to delegate audio management to a dedicated chip rather than the processor.

Will Google Chrome one day be the most energy efficient web browser? For several years now, Google has stepped up its efforts to make Chrome more “green”. In addition to optimizations to prevent Chrome from monopolizing a machine’s resources, Google has implemented several features to limit the energy impact of its Web browser, notably with its energy and memory saver.

But the Mountain View firm nevertheless seems to want to go even further. Google is reportedly preparing a new function aimed at “offloading audio” with the aim of making some additional energy savings.

Chrome may soon delegate audio management

Windows Latest, which reports the information, indicates having unearthed on a Chrome validation page (commit), lines referring to an audio unloading function (audio offloading in English). Concretely, audio offloading is a technique used to improve performance and energy efficiency by delegating tasks related to sound processing to dedicated components. Here, an integration in Chrome would allow the browser to transfer audio management to a dedicated processing unit (often an audio-specific coprocessor directly integrated into the CPU), rather than monopolizing the resources of the main processor as it does. This is currently the case.

By doing this, Chrome could, when an audio stream must be processed, reduce the load placed on the main processor. Consequently, the browser would save some energy and thus maintain the autonomy of portable machines.

Google is reportedly about to start testing this new feature behind a flag named “ Audio Offload for video streaming » within Chrome Canary. At the time of writing, the option is not yet available on our version, although up to date, of Chrome Canary.

The function, currently still at an experimental stage, could take a few more months before arriving for good in a stable version of Chrome.