# Is there a way to make all browser windows think they're active?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-all-browser-windows-think-theyre-active/820116>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 23, 2018, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-all-browser-windows-think-theyre-active/820116 "2018-08-23T16:02:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-all-browser-windows-think-theyre-active/820116/1 "2018-08-23T16:02:01Z")

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A lot of times recently I’ve been dealing with something where the browser window will stop doing what it’s doing as soon as it realises that it is not active, other times the action will continue but the audio will stop. Is there a setting in Firefox or Chrome that makes every website think they are always the active window regardless of wich program/window/tab is geniunely my active one?

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**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-all-browser-windows-think-theyre-active/820116/2 "2018-08-23T16:48:06Z")

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For Chrome, go to: chrome://flags/

Find “Automatic tab discarding” and disable it.

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**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-all-browser-windows-think-theyre-active/820116/3 "2018-08-23T16:58:17Z")

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That’s an interesting setting, but I’m not sure it will fix the OP’s problem. The Automatic tab discarding function allows Chrome to disable lesser-used tabs if memory is low. I assume if memory is NOT low, this won’t have any effect.

I have some commonly-used tabs that seem to stop updating if they aren’t primary (weather, live webcam). Yet I have 32GB of RAM and rarely use more than 8 at one time, so I see no reason why tabs would have to be discarded.

**Mr Shine,** let us know if this fixes the problem.

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**Author:** ![Kedikat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kedikat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kedikat)\
**Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-all-browser-windows-think-theyre-active/820116/4 "2018-08-24T01:38:41Z")

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For Firefox I have an add on that will let you set a refresh timer for each tab. It is on my other PC and I cannot remember the name of it right now.

I searched, Firefox auto refresh tab to find it. So far works fine. It remains active for bookmarked tabs. So it is there and working each time I open them.

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**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\
**Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-all-browser-windows-think-theyre-active/820116/5 "2018-08-24T01:51:41Z")

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Hah! You’re taking online defensive driving, aren’t you?

I solved that problem by installing a virtual machine, and running the DD browser in the virtual machine, so I could shell out and do other stuff while waiting on that stupid timer. Technically it wasn’t ever not in focus, since it always was in the virtual machine.