How to Enable Lite Mode in Chrome Browser for Desktop

Chrome browser for Android devices has a feature called “lite mode” which can be enabled from its settings easily. This lite mode can compress data and stream videos in lower resolutions in order to save the mobile data usage. Now the same feature is going to be available to the desktop users of the Google Chrome web browser.

This feature is not yet available in the stable release version of Chrome since it will be available in version 86 of the browser. As of now, you can download and install the experimental Chrome Canary web browser for checking this feature out. You can download Chrome Canary by visiting https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/chrome/canary/.

Here is how you can enable the lite mode in Chrome desktop browser:

  1. Launch Chrome web browser, type chrome://flags in the address bar and press Enter.
  2. In the search box type lite-video to find the experimental features we want to enable.
  3. Find two features Enable LiteVideos and Enable LiteVideos Decision and change their state to enabled.Enable Lite Videos in Chrome
  4. Click on the Relaunch button to restart the Chrome web browser.

Now if you watch videos in Chrome browser, it will automatically switch to the lower resolutions in order to save your internet bandwidth. The feature is enabled only when you watch a video for the very first time. If you refresh the webpage or revisit the same page again, then it will not load the videos in the lower resolution. This way you will save on your daily internet usage while still enjoying watching videos everyday.

This new feature will make it to the stable release channel of Chrome browser in October this year. Until then you can experiment with it using the experimental but perhaps unstable Chrome Canary browser. When it is made available, it will work on all the desktop platforms including Windows, Linux, macOS and ChromeOS.