Random mode picks a new delay between your minimum and maximum seconds on every cycle.
A fixed interval is easy to reason about. A random range is useful when a perfectly steady cadence is unnecessary — or when you want reloads to land less predictably while staying inside a freshness budget.
How it works
Turn random mode on, set a minimum and a maximum (both in seconds, at or above the extension minimum). Each time a cycle completes, Auto Refresh Turbo chooses the next delay uniformly between those bounds. The service worker schedules that delay with Chrome alarms, then calls tab reload when the alarm fires.
Minimum must stay below maximum. If the numbers feel wrong, the popup should keep you from starting an invalid range.
When random helps
- Ops boards that only need to feel “fresh enough,” not beat-perfect
- Shared origins where many clients reload on the hour
- Light softening of metronomic access patterns (not a ban bypass)
- Kiosks where a little timing jitter is invisible to viewers
If you are debugging timing bugs, switch back to a fixed interval so logs are easier to read.
Picking min and max
- Decide the stalest data you can accept (that is your max)
- Decide the most aggressive load you will allow (that is your min)
- Keep a meaningful gap — 45–90 seconds is clearer than 59–60
- Watch several cycles before you tighten the band
Example: min 40 / max 70 for a dense board; min 120 / max 300 for a quiet vendor status page.
Random plus daily schedule
Inside a daily window, random delays still apply. Outside the window, the session is paused: options stay saved, and reload resumes when the window opens. That pause is not the same as Stop.
Random plus stop-after-N
Stop after N still counts reloads, not wall-clock minutes. A wide random range stretches how long N cycles take. Use a fixed interval if you need a QA pass to finish in a predictable time box.
Random plus hard refresh
Hard refresh can run on each cycle if you enable it. Pairing hard refresh with a short min can amplify origin load. Prefer normal reload for the random loop, and reserve hard refresh for stubborn shells — see hard refresh vs normal reload.
What you see in the UI
While a session runs, the popup LED-style panel shows time remaining for the current delay. Optional toolbar badge (active tab) and optional on-page visual timer follow the same worker schedule. After reload, the next random delay is armed.
Multi-tab independence
Each tab session can use its own fixed or random settings. Your left monitor can randomize 30–60 seconds while a docs tab stays on a calm five-minute fixed interval.
Limits and honesty
Random intervals do not defeat captchas or rate limits. If a site challenges you, lengthen the range or stop. Optional suspicious-page stop may end the session when a challenge screen appears. Background: rate limits and timed reload.
Try it
Install Auto Refresh Turbo, enable random mode, and confirm one full cycle in about two minutes.