Keeping Chrome Quick and Snappy

There are plenty of reasons as to why Google Chrome is the most popular web browser on the market. Chrome’s lightning vast V8 JavaScript engine is most certainly one, efficient resource management is another, and robust developer tools, fast tab management, and a huge array of powerful extensions are a few more of what is a growing list.

That said, any great machine requires some maintenance every now and then, and your favorite web browser is no different. If you’ve been using Chrome for a long time, you may have noticed it’s become slower than it was when you first installed it; you may have even found that it’s slowing your entire computer down.

There’s no need to uninstall and switch, however. There are solutions to any of these problems, and today, we’re going to explore what you can do about the main slowdown issues.

Cover image credit: Pexels

What to Do if Chrome Is Slowing Your Computer Down

Before we get into the main reasons your Chrome experience may be slower than it should be, we need to address an important analogous problem – Chrome slowing down your computer. 

With all that power comes a substantial load on your computer’s resources: the most likely cause of a system slowdown is Chrome using too much memory (RAM) to the extent that there isn’t enough to go around for other processes. Keeping regular updates, clearing the browser cache, and using the browser’s built-in task manager can each do a world of good in this regard. 

Heavy-load, faulty, or poorly optimized extensions can also be the culprit, so take a look through what you have installed and ask yourself if you really need it. It’s easy to foget what we have installed, so there may be extensions plugged in you don’t even use anymore.

Fundamentally, you should also take care to check the age of your device; older systems are bound to experience a slowdown, so make sure your system actually supports the recommended requirements (as if this is the case, soft fixes won’t help you much!).

Reducing the Number of Open Tabs

A super simple way of speeding up your Chrome browsing experience is to not have too many tabs open. 

Having too many tabs on screen at once – especially if they feature graphic-heavy websites or those hosting video and audio – can drastically increase your memory consumption and the extent Chrome places a load on your CPU. With this being the case, you’re not going to maintain the snappy user experience the browser is known for, so keep your open tabs to a minimum. 

Once you’re at the point of causing a slowdown due to the number of tabs, your experience has likely become cluttered and overbearing anyway, so remember to clean up as you browse!

Enable Hardware Acceleration

One clever feature that Chrome has up its sleeve that many don’t know about is hardware acceleration. If your computer has a dedicated GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), you can use it to offer some extra horsepower to your browsing experience. 

Hardware acceleration takes the load off of graphic-intensive processes, and it’s nice and easy to enable. Just remember, though, that the results you get will vary here depending on how powerful your GPU is – although if you have any sort of dedicated graphics card in your system, you’re sure to be able to benefit from this handy feature!

Flags

Google has always been known for its accessibility – how its services enable you to change many different aspects of your user experience. Chrome is no different here, and you can access a wide range of custom scripts to help speed things up. 

By typing chrome://flags into your address bar and hitting enter, you’re brought to the app’s experimental features page. There are a wide plethora of flags you can enable to increase specific aspects of performance – from Back-Forward Cache (a feature that’s useful if you use social media a lot) and GPU Rasterization (great if you have a GPU and find that images are taking too long to load). Have a browse through some of the available options to see what might be a good fit for your needs. 

It should also be mentioned that due to their experimental nature, the flags you use might not stick around or may have some minor issues in functionality.

Wrapping Up

While Chrome’s powerful features ensure it remains the market leader, things can certainly go south with extended use. Hopefully, you now have some useful strategies for mitigating these problems if they’re happening to you.