Google made a pretty interesting and unexpected announcement about how Chrome will start working to save the battery life of your laptop. How will it do this? By pausing Flash.

Google software engineer Tommy Li explains:

Adobe Flash allows web pages to display rich content—but sometimes that can put a squeeze on your laptop’s battery. So we’ve been working with Adobe to ensure that your experience on the web can be power-efficient as well as rich and interactive—and today, we’re introducing an update to Chrome that does just that.

When you’re on a webpage that runs Flash, we’ll intelligently pause content (like Flash animations) that aren’t central to the webpage, while keeping central content (like a video) playing without interruption. If we accidentally pause something you were interested in, you can just click it to resume playback. This update significantly reduces power consumption, allowing you to surf the web longer before having to hunt for a power outlet.

The feature will be rolling out immediately on the Chrome desktop beta channel release, and to everyone else on desktop soon. It will be enabled by default, but you can adjust the settings on it in Chrome’s content settings by going to “Detect and run important plugin content.”

Image via Google