Google updates Chrome browser to intelligently pause Flash animations

Adobe’s Flash has been slowly dying for several years now, but the old beast still perseveres with system-hogging animations and videos peppered across the internet. Now Google is stepping forward to help ease the platform’s passing. The company yesterday updated its Chrome browser to “intelligently” pause unnecessary content on webpages in an effort to save battery for laptop users.

With the new update, Chrome will detect when a content not central to a page — such as Flash animations — are playing, while still maintaining playback of important video and audio, a move the Chrome team says “significantly reduces power consumption.” The feature’s currently available in Chrome’s beta build, and will be available soon to regular desktop Chrome. It’s enabled by default, but users can choose to manually switch the option on, off, or have Chrome prompt you when to play non-central items by heading to the browser’s content settings and choosing an option under the “Plugins” heading.