The Performance Throttle
To help laptop users survive a long flight, Google Chrome includes a feature called “Energy Saver.” By default, when your laptop battery drops below 20%, Chrome will automatically engage this mode. It aggressively limits background activity, reduces the frame rate of animations, and forces videos to play at a lower quality to conserve power. While this extends your battery life, it makes the browser feel incredibly sluggish and ruins the experience of watching a movie or playing a web-based game. If you are sitting on an airplane and simply want maximum performance until the laptop physically dies, you must disable the throttling engine.
How to Turn Off Energy Saver
You can revoke Chrome’s permission to monitor your battery life via the Performance settings.
- Open the Google Chrome desktop browser.
- Click the three vertical dots (⋮) in the top right corner and select Settings.
- In the left-hand sidebar, click on Performance.
- Scroll down to the second section, labeled “Power.”
- You will see a master toggle switch for Energy Saver.
- Toggle this switch to the Off position (the switch will turn grey).
Unrestricted Browsing
The change takes effect instantly. Chrome will immediately stop communicating with your operating system’s battery monitor. Even if your laptop is at 1% battery and flashing a red warning light, the browser will continue to utilize 100% of your available CPU and GPU power, rendering 60-frame-per-second animations and 4K videos without any artificial throttling.