Google Chrome has become the Internet browser of choice for many PC users, as well as more than 1 billion mobile users. There are plenty of reasons to love Google Chrome, but of course, the application is not perfect, and one of the biggest issues with Google Chrome is that it sometimes has a tendency to overuse system resources, especially RAM. Fortunately, there are several ways to avoid or overcome these issues, so if you are a Google Chrome user on Windows or Mac OS, you might find the tips below to be quite useful.
First things first, this may be one of those case-by-case solutions that don’t necessarily guarantee results, but either way, you should always make sure that Google Chrome is up to date. The easiest way to do this is to look at the menu icon in the upper-right corner in Chrome and see what color it is. If it’s gray, your browser is up to date. Otherwise, green, orange, and red colors stand as a visual representation of how out-of-date your browser is (green = 2 days; orange = 4 days; red = 7 days). Moving on, you may want to get rid of unwanted extensions and plugins. To do this, simply type “chrome://extensions” or “chrome://plugins” in the address bar (without the quotation marks), and disable any unwanted plugins or extensions. Another trick that might give your browser an extra performance boost is running the default theme. Google Chrome allows users to enhance their experience with themes available in the Chrome Web Store, but some themes might use more RAM than others. Needless to say, to get the most out of your browser – performance-wise – you might want to consider removing any custom themes and use the default one instead. To do this, type “chrome://settings” in the address bar, and click “Reset to default theme” under “Appearance”.
In some cases, you may find that Google Chrome inexplicably takes up too much space on your hard drive, and in such scenarios, it may be helpful to clear the browser cache. Simply type “chrome://settings/clearBrowserData” into the address bar and check “Cached images and files” in the pop-up window. Optionally, you can choose to clear your browsing history and other data. When ready, click “Clear browsing data”. Stepping into “experimental features”, you can also try increasing performance by enabling “fast tab/window close”, allowing Google Chrome to close windows regardless of any JavaScript code that may be running. Simply type in “chrome://flags” and click “Enable” under “Fast tab/window close”. Keep in mind that this is an experimental feature, so in case you’ll want to undo the changes at any point in the future, you can do so by clicking “Reset all to default” in the “chrome://flags” settings page.
Assuming Google Chrome performs poorly but you are certain that the issues are caused by a slow Internet connection, Google’s “Data Saver” extension (available in the Chrome Web Store) might be your best ally. The extension can improve bandwidth by compressing and optimizing web pages on Google’s servers before the information is sent to your browser. Last but certainly not least, malware, spyware, and other malicious bits of code can cause a ton of issues and can slow down your browser tremendously – not to mention the privacy concerns posed by a malware attack. Make sure your system and browser are clean, and if needed, you can run Google’s “Chrome Cleanup Tool” to determine what may cause problems with your browser.