hover-prefetch

About this tag
Hover-prefetch is a Chrome browsing optimization that uses mouse hover signals to prepare pages before a click, aiming for faster navigation without the memory cost of full prerendering. Recent Chromium experiments, visible in Canary builds, add a render boost that prioritizes active page loads. This approach reopens trade-offs around privacy, resource use, and potential side effects for websites and users. The tag covers discussions of these performance improvements and their implications for everyday browsing.
  1. Chrome hover-prefetch and render boost: faster browsing without full prerender

    Google's work on making Chrome feel faster has quietly returned to an old idea with a modern twist: the browser is now experimenting with using simple mouse hovers as a signal to prepare pages before you click, and it has added a lower-level "render boost" that gives active page loads more...