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- It won't discard background tabs with: Active Audio/Video, Screen Share, Page Notification, Active Downloads, partially filled forms, or connected devices. -

- It won't discard background tabs with: Active Audio/Video, Screen Share, Page Notification, Active Downloads, partially filled forms, or connected devices. - It can be disabled via chrome://settings/performance - Installing browser updates, like 110, may lose tab state anyway. The only potential "sin" they made here is enabled by default. However, users also dislike being prompted with new choices when an update installs. They want updates to be "invisible." It also seems like the first time it discards a background tab, it does warn you that this can be turned off in Settings, which is maybe a fair middle ground.

qwertox 4y ago
I got that popup after it put a background page into low-mem state. It told me that it had done it and that I can disable it. I think it gave me a link to the settings location. Most of the people who don't care about browsers will be accustomed to having their state erased anyway when something like a page-reload or a navigation-action has been made, so I think it's fair to enable it by default. The benefit they get by it outweighs the side-effects, specially if you consider your first point.
dspillett 4y ago
> It won't discard background tabs with … Active Audio/Video … partially filled forms … Thus begins a new arms race, as people who don't want their tabs discarded add hidden forms which are later modified by JS to look like they have useful new state, or adding silent single-pixel auto-playing videos, and the browser try to detect those tricks, so further tricks are devised.
xboxnolifes 4y ago
HN has way too much of a hate boner for enabled by default. If things didn't have any features enabled by default, 95% of people would never know they existed. Hell, why have the ability to have multiple tabs enabled by default? For invasive things like data collection, sure. For what amounts to garbage collection, does it really matter?

qwertox 4y ago

I got that popup after it put a background page into low-mem state. It told me that it had done it and that I can disable it. I think it gave me a link to the settings location. Most of the people who don't care about browsers will be accustomed to having their state erased anyway when something like a page-reload or a navigation-action has been made, so I think it's fair to enable it by default. The benefit they get by it outweighs the side-effects, specially if you consider your first point.

dspillett 4y ago

> It won't discard background tabs with … Active Audio/Video … partially filled forms … Thus begins a new arms race, as people who don't want their tabs discarded add hidden forms which are later modified by JS to look like they have useful new state, or adding silent single-pixel auto-playing videos, and the browser try to detect those tricks, so further tricks are devised.

xboxnolifes 4y ago

HN has way too much of a hate boner for enabled by default. If things didn't have any features enabled by default, 95% of people would never know they existed. Hell, why have the ability to have multiple tabs enabled by default? For invasive things like data collection, sure. For what amounts to garbage collection, does it really matter?