We’ve updated to Lighthouse 9.3.1 and Chrome 98 – read on for complete changes that come with this release.

Lighthouse 9.3.1

Moving from Lighthouse 8.3.0 to 9.3.1 saw a few notable changes, mainly new audits:
 

• Avoid unload event listeners
  • Avoiding unload event listeners can help you take advantage of the back/forward cache (aka bfcache) in modern browsers. Learn more
     
• Don’t lazy load Largest Contentful Paint image
  • Lazy loading your LCP image (e.g., hero image, main slider, etc.) can have a detrimental effect on your page’s LCP timing. Learn more
     
• Use a <meta name="viewport"> tag with width or initial-scale
  • Using the viewport meta tag lets you set the width and scaling of the viewport so that it’s correctly sized on all devices. Learn more
     
• Preload Largest Contentful Paint image (Re-enabled)
  • Preloading the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) image can display your hero image or website banner much earlier in the page load. Learn more
     

Chrome 98

Our Chrome browser is also updated to version 98.0.4758.102. Notable changes included:

• First Contentful Paint Detection Changes
  • FCP may increase as First Paint isn’t triggered by content not visible due to opacity: 0
     
• Largest Contentful Paint Changes
  • A website with a text-based LCP may see LCP values increased due to more accurate paint times

Other Updates

• Adblock Plus updated to 3.12
  • Updated ad filters
     
• Various bug fixes
  • History Graph CLS rounding bug
     
• Added the following CDNs for auto-detection:
  • Vercel
  • Limelight Networks
  • Optimal CDN
  • Fastly CDN updated

 
Let us know if you run across any bugs or issues and feel free to tell us your thoughts on Twitter (@gtmetrix) or contact us.