Google Chrome Now Has Full Support for Background Apps

[Jack]

Background pages in Google Chrome have been around for a while now, in the dev channel. While Google has provided some info, it's only now explaining in detail what the feature does and how it's useful. It's also making the functionality available to hosted apps, it has only been available for packaged apps and extensions so far.

"Apps and extensions that use the new 'background' feature can continue to run in the background—even if the user closes down all of Chrome’s windows," Andrew Wilson, Software Engineer and Michael Mahemoff, Developer Relations, wrote.

"These windows are not going to be visible but they will be able to perform tasks like checking for server-side changes and pre-emptively loading content into local storage," they explained.

More details - link

 

[LoftedAphid86]

Sounds like a good point for malware to perform a payload. Resource usage is bound to be higher on average.
I am having conflicted thoughts about this.

 

[AyeAyeCaptain]

Totally agree with you there, at the very least, it's bound to push up the CPU usage.

 

[LoftedAphid86]

Most people would be put off by the fact that the browser won't stop using up memory.

 

[bogdan]

What extensions need this... my guess is that none. As for apps... I haven't tried any. But when you think that google builds an entire OS around Chrome, this feature makes makes sense.

 

[LoftedAphid86]

What extensions need this... my guess is that none. As for apps... I haven't tried any. But when you think that google builds an entire OS around Chrome, this feature makes makes sense.

But then, you never quit the browser, so this would never really come into effect.