← Back to release summary

Same-origin prerendering triggered by the speculation rules API

Category
Performance
Type
New or changed feature
Status
Enabled by default (Chrome 105)
Intent stage
Shipped

Summary

Prerendering loads a web page before it is needed, so that when the actual navigation to that page occurs, it can be shown instantly.

Motivation

To speed up page loads. Chrome previously had a prerender mechanism that was replaced with No State Prefetch[1]. No State Prefetch is simpler and safer, but doesn't generally result in the instant page load experience that we think is possible with prerendering. We intend to prototype prerendering again to see if we can bring it back in a way that handles the issues of the previous incarnation. We are working on a design to address these issues, which included undesirable side-effects, resource consumption, low hit rate, privacy and security issues, and code complexity. [1] https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/07/nostate-prefetch

Standards & signals

Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P2VKCLpmnNm_cRAjUeE-bqLL0bslL_zKqiNeCzNom_w/edit?usp=sharing

Samples: https://prerender2-specrules.glitch.me

Explainers: https://github.com/jeremyroman/alternate-loading-modes/blob/main/same-origin-explainer.md https://github.com/jeremyroman/alternate-loading-modes/blob/main/README.md

View on chromestatus.com