Prerender2 for Desktop

Category: Performance
Type: Chromium catches up
Status: Enabled by default (Chrome 105)
Intent stage: Evaluate readiness to ship

Breaking change: No
Enterprise impact: Medium
Spec maturity: Incubation
Web Platform Tests: No

WPT details: We will add WPT to the extent possible. Some behavior may be internal or UA-dependent and require a different set of tests. We have a suite of tests at https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:third_party/blink/web_tests/external/wpt/speculation-rules/prerender/

Summary

To achieve parity among the all supporting platforms, we are implementing Prerender2 for Desktop (as an addition to Android). We are going to ship same-origin prerendering triggered by the speculation rules API and Omnibox (same as current triggers for Android). See also [1] Same-origin prerendering triggered by the speculation rules API [1] https://chromestatus.com/feature/5355965538893824

Standards & signals

Specification: https://wicg.github.io/nav-speculation/prerendering.html
Firefox: No signal
Safari: No signal — Has some form of prerendering already in place with non-external details on its heuristics.
Web developers: No signals
Tracking bug: https://crbug.com/1278141

Ecosystem

Web Platform Tests: https://wpt.fyi/results/?q=prerender2-for-desktop
Chrome Platform Showcase: https://chrome-platform-showcase.paulkinlan-ea.deno.net/features
GenDN reference: https://gendn.paulkinlan-ea.deno.net/features
chrome.dev demos search: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Achrome.dev+Prerender2%20for%20Desktop
MDN Web Docs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=Prerender2%20for%20Desktop
Baseline status: https://webstatus.dev/?q=Prerender2%20for%20Desktop

Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EpLshvc9RRW3vswmXsJGrbCkhlFmxDsWfbvgxmYDTfs

Explainers: https://github.com/WICG/nav-speculation/blob/main/README.md

View on chromestatus.com