[webkit-dev] High Resolution Timer API proposal(s)

[Geoffrey Garen]

> Again, I'm wondering how many legitimate uses are there for short  
> timeouts in background tabs/windows.

In a background window:
animation
video
audio
work queues for database or other background processing
something interesting the web hasn't invented yet

To give you some context, Safari used to throttle plug-in timers for  
background windows. The result was that users would see randomly  
choppy content.

In a background tab:
audio
work queues for database or other background processing
something interesting the web hasn't invented yet

Also note that protections for background windows and tabs wouldn't  
solve the majority of the problem we've seen in the wild, which is the  
*foreground* window going crazy in a single-tabbed browsing session.

Geoff