New Chrome Stable release improves battery life and website permission control

Googler Ami Fischman, a self-dubbed “Watt Wrangler”, just announced a new battery-saving Chrome Stable release.

“We recently enabled GPU-accelerated video decoding for Chrome on Windows,” wrote Fischman on the official Google Chrome blog. “Dedicated graphics chips draw far less power than a computer’s CPU, so using GPU-accelerated video decoding while watching videos can increase battery life significantly.”

Fischman noted test results show batteries last 25 percent longer with GPU-accelerated video decoding switched on. So now, Chrome users on Windows can watch more YouTube videos, as Fischman noted, without worrying about dwindling battery life.

Chrome users can even access website permissions, such as geolocation, much more easily with the new release:

This saves you from having to dig through settings pages to find these permissions. Now, simply click on the page/lock icon next to a website’s address in the omnibox to see a list of permissions and tweak them as you wish.

This latest release also includes an option to send a “do not track” request to websites and web services. The effectiveness of such requests is dependent on how websites and services respond, so Google is working with others on a common way to respond to these requests in the future.

Google’s Chrome browser auto-updates, but newcomers can download the latest version, too.

Related articles:

• Samsung to start 2013 with new brand unveiling at CES? (9to5Google)
• Review: LG Nexus 4 — a world class smartphone for $300 (9to5Google)