If you’ve ever opened a webpage and wondered why it takes a second too long to settle down, especially when it’s full of videos and media, this upcoming change could finally fix that. Chromium-based browsers – including Microsoft Edge and Vivaldi – have supported lazy loading for years. But only for images and iframes. It’s not quite the same with video and audio. But that will soon change. Thanks to a suggestion from independent developer Helmut Januschka, Chromium-based browsers are preparing to also support native lazy loading for video and audio elements. And while it sounds like a technical footnote, it could make browsing a lot smoother.
What Lazy Loading Actually Does (and Why It Matters)
When you open a webpage, your browser usually goes into overdrive, trying to load everything at once: images, videos, audio, ads, the whole buffet. Unsurprisingly, this isn’t good for speed. Lazy loading takes a smarter approach. Instead of fetching everything in advance, the browser waits and only loads content when you’re viewing it. So if a video or image is further down the page, it won’t load until you scroll close, and if you never get there, it might not load at all. The result is faster page loads, lower data usage, and a smoother browsing experience.
This is where things get interesting. Websites already use lazy loading for videos and audio, but mostly rely on JavaScript workarounds to implement it. It serves its purpose, but is anything but elegant. Developers typically use tools like Intersection Observer to detect when media enters the viewport and then manually trigger loading. It’s a bit cumbersome, can be error-prone, and doesn’t always work well with the browser’s built-in optimizations. Januschka’s suggestion aims to remedy this. Instead of all these additional scripts, developers can simply add the native HTML attribute loading="lazy" transferred directly to video and audio elements, making the entire process much more efficient.
Why native support is a big deal
When the browser adopts lazy loading, it simply does a better job:
- It can schedule media loading based on your network conditions.
- It skips the additional delay caused by executing JavaScript beforehand.
- It works hand in hand with preload scanners and built-in optimizations.
- It ensures that the entire page loads smoothly instead of hindering.
Simply put: it’s cleaner, faster and more efficient. As Januschka pointed out, this also aligns video and audio with the pre-existing behavior of images and iframes, resulting in a more consistent and predictable experience across the web. This feature has evolved in Chromium’s pipeline:
- First implemented in January
- Landed in builds of February
- Entered the shipping phase march
Now, a recent code change suggests that it may be enabled by default in stable builds. If things continue as expected, it could launch with Chrome 148.
