When Google released Chrome browser, it promised a bloat-free and light-weight browsing experience. However, over the years, Chrome has put on a fair amount of weight. I still wouldn’t call it bloated, but I have consistently found Chrome to be the most demanding of all the browsers that I use. One of the major contributors to Chrome’s overhead is extensions. Now, Google is trying to do something about it.

Google has announced a new feature called “Event Pages” that will enable extension developers to put their Chrome extensions on a diet. All current generation Chrome extensions continue running in the background, even if they aren’t being actively used. Event Pages will allow developers to create extensions that will automatically be unloaded from the memory, if the user is not interacting with it.

Chrome has always been resource hungry due to its architecture. All plug-ins, extensions, and tabs have their own process. This means that on the whole Chrome require mores CPU cycles and memory than other browsers. Modern day computers do have sufficient memory to handle a browser, even a resource hungry one. Still, it’s still heartening to see Chrome developers trying to keep the extension overhead under control, as Chrome will also have to run on devices like the Chromebook.

This feature is currently available in the Chrome Dev Channel, and will be incorporated in Chrome Beta and Stable channels over the summer.