For quite some time now, Google Chrome has held its title as the most popular, and arguably the best browser in the world. But it can get a tad slow sometimes. Thankfully, there are some simple tricks you can do to speed it up quite a bit, and your browser will be performing like new before you know it. In addition to these adjustments, it’s always beneficial to make sure you’re on the latest version of Chrome, which you can check under the settings menu by going to “Help > About Google Chrome”.
The first step is to take a look at your extensions. Are there any that you don’t need? Some of them may serve a purpose, but keep in mind that the more extensions you have, the slower your browser may run. Getting rid of the ones that aren’t essential may give you a noticeable performance boost. You can get to your extensions from the settings menu by going to “More tools > Extensions”. On the other hand, some extensions may actually improve speed. Google’s Data Saver, for example, reduces the amount of data transferred, thereby reducing the time it takes to load. There are also other similar options available in the Chrome Web Store. Plug-ins can be another cause of a slow browser. To take a look at your plugins, navigate to the URL chrome://plugins. Be careful here, disabling certain plugins may cause certain functions in Chrome to stop working. If you’re not sure, it’s probably best to leave it alone. Lastly, clearing out the cache every once in a while may help. Although to some extent the cache can actually increase the speed by storing items so they can load more quickly later, having too much data stored in it can negatively impact performance. This is something that should be done on a regular basis if you find your browser slowing down frequently. To clear your cache, under the settings menu go to Show advanced settings > Clear browsing data, and be sure to tick the box marked “Cached images and files”.
Over time, if you find that your browser is slowing down again, remember these tricks as they may come in handy again. You may find in a couple of months that you’ve added a few extensions you don’t really care about, and wouldn’t mind giving up for the sake of performance. If you love using Chrome but suffer from slow loading times, these easy tricks should get you up and running again in no time.
