Chrome 52 for Android massively reduces battery and data consumption by video

Google is pushing out Chrome 52 for Android, and the big news with this release relates to video. With video being such a massive component of internet traffic, it is perfectly natural for Google to focus on this area, and the company says that improvements have been made to battery consumption and loading times.

There is a marked shift of focus to speed and power efficiency -- compared to the desktop where the focus has long been quality over everything else.

Importantly, Google has now made it possible to reap the benefits of Data Saver Mode when watching video. If the option is activated in Chrome, a 'lightweight' version of video is played, which Google claims could reduce data usage by up to 50 percent. But don’t expect a universally brilliant experience with every video. Short video will benefit the most, so feature length movies will still prove data hogs.

In a blog post about the update, Google says:

Web video is huge, with over a billion hours played in Chrome every week on sites like Amazon, Facebook, The New York Times, Netflix and YouTube. Much of that is on mobile devices, and we want to make your viewing experience great.

With the release of Chrome 52 on Android, video playback has been improved for speed and power efficiency. This means you will see smoother playback and faster load times. Videos will now start playing sooner, instead of pausing briefly before loading, and your battery will last longer.

The following video shows the difference in loading times with the latest version of Chrome for Android compared to its predecessor:

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