Google Chrome’s Lite mode feature on Android will now Sync with Smartphone Data Saver and going forward, it will also respect Windows 10’s Meter Connections and iOS’s Low data mode settings.
A year back, Google had renamed ‘Data Saver in Chrome to ‘Lite mode’. The Lite Mode feature reduces data usage on mobile by sending compressed pages from Google Servers to the device before the user visits them.
A bug has been filed by Chromium employee saying that “Chrome lite mode should toggle with OS-level data saving preferences”.
Generally, if you enable Data Saver mode in Android device settings, the Lite mode setting in Chrome will stay off.
This is going to change as Google is going to make Chrome’s lite mode setting to synchronize with Android Data Saver, Windows 10’s Meter Connections, and iOS’s Low Data mode.
The feature is already working in Chrome Canary on Android.
1. Configure data saving preferences for Smartphone in device Settings
2. Launch Chrome Canary
3. Visit chrome://flags
4. Search for “Experimental Web Platform features”
5. Select “Enabled” from the dropdown and restart the browser.
6. Now if you visit Chrome Settings, Lite mode will be turned on and saving data for you.
Chrome on desktop doesn’t have ‘Lite mode’ built-in, Data Saver extension has been deprecated recently. It’s unclear how this will work on Windows 10.
`@media (prefers-reduced-data)` is now available to prototype with 🎉
Find it in Chrome Canary behind chrome://flags/#enable-experimental-web-platform-features
For now it only works with Chrome Lite mode, but the plan is to sync with all OS’s: https://t.co/jqAVcI2W6F pic.twitter.com/07GOGTX2QJ
— Adam Argyle (@argyleink) June 23, 2020
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