Page Refresh

Page Refresh is a free Google Chrome extension that automatically refreshes idle Web pages at various intervals. It can keep pages from closing due to inactivity or refresh them to display the latest scores or prices or whatever it is you're tracking.

At 12.86KB, Page Refresh is probably close to some kind of quantum threshold for functional Windows software. Like other Chrome extensions, it essentially installs itself instantaneously without requiring a browser restart, and it's managed from the Extensions page under Tools in the Chrome settings menu, which we accessed by clicking the wrench icon on Chrome's interface. The only option lets you select when to display the extension's icon in the address bar, but its documentation page offers a good set of instructions. Page Refresh is activated by typing the keystroke combination Ctrl-Shift-R. We browsed to a regularly updated page, activated Page Refresh, and clicked its icon. This called up a small window with buttons for selecting to refresh our page in intervals of 2, 5, 10, or 30 seconds or 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes; or not to refresh the page. We selected 2 seconds and waited; 2 seconds later, the page reloaded. We found that we sometimes set the interval too short for slow-loading pages to finish reloading before Page Refresh reloaded them again, but adjustments were easy.

We can think of plenty of uses for Page Refresh, such as keeping an animated weather radar page active and updated, watching an online auction, or following a live sporting event. Page Refresh is so compact you'll hardly know it's there; in fact, if you check the box to only display its icon while you're pressing its keystroke combination, you won't know it's there until you need it.