It’s time to update Google Chrome again. The new stable release of Chrome has brought in two significant changes that make browsing more energy efficient both for the laptop and you. In the first change, Google has enabled GPU-accelerated video decoding for Chrome on Windows. So if you are using a laptop with a dedicated graphics chip, you can expect your batteries to last longer on the road.

Google conducted a few tests which showed that the battery lasted 25% longer when GPU-accelerated video decoding was enabled. The reasoning cannot be faulted as dedicated graphics chip draw less power than a burdened CPU.

The other way your browser is changing is in the way you can view and grant permissions to any website that asks for your location, pop-ups, and microphone or webcam access. You don’t have to dive into the settings anymore as Chrome has made them more accessible via the page/lock icon (View Site Information) next to a website’s address in the omnibox. Just click on the icon to see the entire list of permissions for a specific site and allow or disallow them as you wish.

You can also send a “do not track” request to websites and web applications now, but as Google says – the effectiveness of such requests is dependent on how websites and services respond, so Google is working with others to find a common way to respond to these requests in the future.

Source: Google Chrome Blog