As you know, if something takes ten steps, I reduce it in half, and even if it takes two steps, I reduce it in half, using Windows automation scripts.
But Windows Chromium browsers aggressively throttle, suspend & deprioritize rendering & event handling when the Chromium browser window loses focus.
Probably nobody can help me, but just in case, is there a way to stop Chromium from going into 'sleep mode' when it's not the active window?
I'm was using AHK to click UI elements, but as soon as the window loses
focus (on a main or 2nd screen), Chromium stops updating & the UI unloads.
How can we force Chromium to stay fully active even when it's not focused?
Paul wrote:
Try a Google search on
chromium flag to disable browser sleep
and a whole bunch of rubbish will show up. It's
pretty obvious they've not designed this in a way
to help you. There are lots of things to adjust
to keep absolutely everything at full power.
If there had been a single control, the returned links
would have had a "concentrated theme" to them. But
the results are for tabs and other things, so there
must be more than one power control.
Hi Paul,
I didn't expect any help, so I'm appreciative you understood the issue.
I've been working this for a month where I've since learned that Chromium browsers have a built-in power-saving system called tab throttling and
window occlusion detection.
When a window is not the active foreground window, Chromium automatically:
a. lowers its timer resolution
b. pauses rendering
c. stops GPU compositing
d. deprioritizes event handling
e. and may freeze the UI thread entirely
This is intentional.
It's designed to save battery and CPU when a window isn't being used.
As far as I can tell from having battled this for about a month (elapsed time) now, there is no one single flag that disables this behavior.
I think Chromium splits it across multiple subsystems:
a. background timer throttling
b. occluded window throttling
c. hidden tab suspension
d. rendering pipeline discard
e. GPU frame-rate reduction
etc.
Your search idea is good but that's likely why searching for "disable
browser sleep" returns scattered, inconsistent results, because Chromium doesn't expose one master switch.
It's several independent power-saving mechanisms working together.
So when we Google it, we don't see a "concentrated theme" because Chromium never designed this as one feature. It's a whole cluster of throttling systems and so far, I've not been able to fully disable any of them yet.
When I ask a question like this, it's literally out of desperation!
Hi Paul,
I didn't expect any help, so I'm appreciative you understood the issue.
I've been working this for a month where I've since learned that Chromium browsers have a built-in power-saving system called tab throttling and
window occlusion detection.
When a window is not the active foreground window, Chromium automatically:
a. lowers its timer resolution
b. pauses rendering
c. stops GPU compositing
d. deprioritizes event handling
e. and may freeze the UI thread entirely
This is intentional.
It's designed to save battery and CPU when a window isn't being used.
As far as I can tell from having battled this for about a month (elapsed time) now, there is no one single flag that disables this behavior.
I think Chromium splits it across multiple subsystems:
a. background timer throttling
b. occluded window throttling
c. hidden tab suspension
d. rendering pipeline discard
e. GPU frame-rate reduction
etc.
Your search idea is good but that's likely why searching for "disable
browser sleep" returns scattered, inconsistent results, because Chromium doesn't expose one master switch.
It's several independent power-saving mechanisms working together.
So when we Google it, we don't see a "concentrated theme" because Chromium never designed this as one feature. It's a whole cluster of throttling systems and so far, I've not been able to fully disable any of them yet.
When I ask a question like this, it's literally out of desperation!
On 24/06/2026 11:44, JJ wrote:
Be aware that, Chromium is the least configurable web browser.
I have used this script to disable all AI and privacy nonsense. The code should be all in oneline but TB is not doing that.
<& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/main/main.ps1")))>
On 2026-06-24 19:36, GitHub User wrote:
On 24/06/2026 11:44, JJ wrote:
Be aware that, Chromium is the least configurable web browser.
I have used this script to disable all AI and privacy nonsense. The code should be all in oneline but TB is not doing that.
<& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/main/main.ps1")))>
it got as one line here.
This is also one line, if your display is wide enough:
abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde
On Wed, 6/24/2026 3:25 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2026-06-24 19:36, GitHub User wrote:
On 24/06/2026 11:44, JJ wrote:
Be aware that, Chromium is the least configurable web browser.
I have used this script to disable all AI and privacy nonsense. The code should be all in oneline but TB is not doing that.
<& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/main/main.ps1")))>
it got as one line here.
This is also one line, if your display is wide enough:
abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde abcde
You have to set your line wrap to some numeric value.
Default is roughly 72 characters per line.
Max line length is up around 1000 characters or so, and my
wrap is set to 1000.
You will need to check your newsreader for the wrap setting.
Format-flowed as a property, is a separate issue. Since I make
ASCII art, using format-flowed would be detrimental to a good
presentation of ASCII art.
The neatest trick, is a message someone sent once, which
used the continuation character on the end of each line. This
allows the line count of the message to be "1 line(s)", yet
the message had a million characters in it (a thousand
line-continuation characters). If you absolutely must have the
longest line, as a bar bet, you can do it, with a line that
is virtually a million characters wide.
For lesser width challenges, the wrap setting is the thing you want.
Paul
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