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Protecting users and their data is a fundamental aspect of the work we do on Chrome. Last year, as part of Google’s Project Strobe, we announced an important set of policies for extensions to protect users and their data. These policies require extensions to request only the permissions needed to implement their features. Additionally, we required more extensions to post privacy policies and handle user data securely.  


Today, we are announcing changes that build upon those protections with an update to our developer policy that limits what extension developers can do with the data they collect. The new policy also requires developers to certify their data use practices, and display that information directly on the Chrome Web Store listing to help users understand an extension’s privacy practices. 


Simplifying privacy practices for our users

Starting January 2021, each extension’s detail page in the Chrome Web Store will show developer-provided information about the data collected by the extension, in clear and easy to understand language. Data disclosure collection is available to developers today. 

Updating our user data privacy policy

We are also introducing an additional policy focused on limiting how extension developers use data they collect. More specifically:

  • Ensuring the use or transfer of user data is for the primary benefit of the user and in accordance with the stated purpose of the extension.

  • Reiterating that the sale of user data is never allowed. Google does not sell user data and extension developers may not do this either.

  • Prohibiting the use or transfer of user data for personalized advertising. 

  • Prohibiting the use or transfer of user data for creditworthiness or any form of lending qualification and to data brokers or other information resellers. 


The item listing page will also display whether the developer has certified that their extension complies with this new policy. 


Developer-provided privacy disclosures

To publish or update an extension, our new policy will require developers to provide data usage disclosures directly from the privacy tab of the developer dashboard. These disclosures include:

  • The nature of the data being collected from users.  

  • The developer’s certification that they comply with the new Limited Use policy. 


The disclosure form is grouped by category to make it simpler for developers, and maps exactly to the disclosures that will be displayed to Chrome users. Most of this information will be consistent with existing privacy policies that developers have provided to the Chrome Web Store. 


Data disclosures collection will be made available to developers today, and will be displayed on the Chrome Web Store listing starting January 18, 2021. 


For developers who have not yet provided privacy disclosures by January 18, 2021, a notice will be shown on their Chrome Web Store listings to inform users that the developer hasn’t certified that they comply with the Limited Use policy yet. 


You can find the full policy in the Developer Program Policies page as well as additional details in the User Data FAQ .


Thank you for working with us to build a better web with transparency, choice, and control for everyone.



Posted by Alexandre Blondin and Mark M. Jaycox, Chrome Product & Policy
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Even if you have a lot of tabs open, you likely only focus on a small set of them to get a task done. Starting in this release, Chrome is actively managing your computer’s resources to make the tabs you care about fast—while allowing you to keep hundreds of tabs open—so you can pick up where you left off.

In this release, we’re improving how Chrome understands and manages resources with Tab throttling, occlusion tracking and back/forward caching, so you can quickly get to what you need when you need it.



Tab throttling and Occlusion Tracking
Knowing what tabs you’re using helps Chrome manage your computer’s resources more efficiently to get things done. We’ve made significant improvements by preventing background tabs from waking up your CPU too often, and no longer rendering tabs that you can’t see.

We investigated how background tabs use system resources and found that JavaScript Timers represent >40% of the work in background tabs. Reducing their impact on CPU and power is important to make the browser more efficient. Beginning in M87, we’re throttling JavaScript timer wake-ups in background tabs to once per minute. This reduces CPU usage by up to 5x, and extends battery life up to 1.25 hours in our internal testing. We’ve done this without sacrificing the background features that users care about, like playing music and getting notifications.

Next, we’re bringing Occlusion Tracking--which was previously added to Chrome OS and Mac--to Windows, which allows Chrome to know which windows and tabs are actually visible to you. With this information, Chrome can optimize resources for the tabs you are using, not the ones you’ve minimized, making Chrome up to 25% faster to start up and 7% faster to load pages, all while using less memory.

These updates will be gradually rolling out in M87 and our next release, M88. 



Back/forward cache
How many times have you visited a website and clicked a link to go to another page, only to realize it's not what you wanted and click the back button? On mobile devices, this happens a lot: 1 in 5 navigations are a back/forward navigation. This is where a back/forward cache shines! It’s a browser optimization which enables instant back and forward navigations. In Chrome 87, our back/forward cache will make 20% of those back/forward navigations instant, with plans to increase this to 50% through further improvements and developer outreach in the near future. Here is how it works:
 


Back/forward cache is one of our long wished-for feature requests in Chrome and now with Chrome 87 we will gradually launch it to Chrome for Android users. Head over to this technical article to learn more about how we added back/forward cache within Chrome's multi-process architecture and if you're a web developer, learn how to make the most of the back/forward cache on your website.

Posted by Mark Chang, Chrome Product Manager



Data source: Real world data anonymously aggregated from Chrome pre-stable channels.