Chrome 56 Will Aggressively Throttle Background Tabs

[bauer1j]

See:

Chrome 56 Will Aggressively Throttle Background Tabs
http://blog.strml.net/2017/01/chrome-56-now-aggressively-throttles.html

and

Intent to Ship: Expensive Background Timer Throttling
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-dev/XRqy8mIOWps/LvBUbWbxAQAJ

Will that affect this speedtest if the user switches tabs while the test is running (something I often do)?

[jgettys]

On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 8:01 AM, Steven Bauer ***@***.***> wrote: See: Chrome 56 Will Aggressively Throttle Background Tabs http://blog.strml.net/2017/01/chrome-56-now-aggressively-throttles.html and Will that affect this speedtest if the user switches tabs while the test is running (something I often do)?

​I expect it will; it did on the DSLreports speed test, and if you run it, you'll see that it will abort if you put the tab in the background; this is already true for current versions. It's probably the case that this test should likewise abort if tabs are switched... But experimentation is in order to confirm previous experience, rather than taking previous experience as a presumption of how this test should behave. Sorry, Jim ​

[bauer1j]

As Jim mentions, upon switching tabs, the DSLreports speed test says:

"Test cancelled due to browser tab switch. error:24

For Desktop: Switching browser tabs, or minimising the window, causes the browser to shut down page activity. This means the speed test will be completely inaccurate. Please leave the browser page visible for the short time the test runs. In speedtest preferences if you enable 'Use Web Workers' you may find the test runs in a hidden tab.

For Mobile: Letting the device sleep - or in the case of Android having the screen go dim - shuts down CPU. This means the speed test will be inaccurate. if you touch the screen you can keep it from starving CPU.
"

See also:

https://www.dslreports.com/faq/17964

This doesn't appear to be entirely true though (at least in Chrome). What happens in different browsers or as changes like those proposed in the top issue are rolled out though are something to monitor.