Wednesday, March 13, 2013

How to speed up Google Chrome (and reduce its memory usage)


Have you ever noticed how much memory Google Chrome uses? I'd really love to see Chrome do better in memory consumption, because not all machines has spare memory to only be hogged by a browser alone. You will notice in Windows' Task Manager that even if one tab is open in Chrome it uses several processes to run it. The explanation is Chrome uses multiple processes for security and stability. They say that one tab that freezes will not likely freeze the others. But I have on occasions experienced the whole Chrome browser freezing which freezes also all the tabs that are open. IE, I think, also uses this feature and Safari too. Let me know if that's not entirely true YET. Here is the breakdown of resource use involved in running Chrome:

number of tasks = 1 (browser master) + one for each tab + one for each extension + one for each plugin

So if you have many extensions and plugins you will notice Chrome getting bogged down. Do you all know that Chrome is currently the only browser that has a built-in Task Manager? To access Chrome's Task Manager, just click the Wrench icon at the rightmost part of the URL bar (where you type the website's address). Sometimes the Wrench icon changes into what looks like 3 horizontal lines. Just click that and then look for Tools>Task manager. Look there and see which tab, extension, or plugin is using so much resources. Take note how much resources you are using when you go to Facebook and play a flash game. hehehe

Some suggestions to speed up your Chrome:

1.  Do NOT run the extensions when not needed, i.e. , disable most of the extensions.

2.  The ADOBE FLASH PLAYER  uses a lot of memory, so try searching for "FlashBlock" and install the extension. It's FREE! It doesn't eat a whole lot of memory. Just look in Chrome's Task Manager and see how much memory Flashblock consumes. I wonders how it works with so little memory use. The FlashBlock extension replaces the flash objects with a clickable image. When we click on the image, the Flash Object is loaded. If you have an internet data plan providing you with a limited amount of GBs FlashBlock would do you good.

3.  Use Chrome's Task Manager to terminate maybe a tab or extension or plugin or an app as each one of them is a separate process to save on memory. You can reload them later on when needed. To terminate a process in Chrome's TM just click the "End process" button at the bottom-right corner of the Chrome's TM (Task Manager).

4.  Clear your Cache/Cookies. Cache is used for loading webpages faster but it's not much use as it consumes some memory in fetching data from the cache (or local storage). To clear your cookies in some versions of Google Chrome:
# Click on the Wrench (or 3 horizontal bars) icon at the farthest right end of the URL bar.
# Select "Options"
# Click on "Under The Hood"
# Click on "Content Settings"
# Click on "All cookies and site data"
# click on "Remove All"
Remember, after doing this, you'll have to log-in again on the sites where you have the "Save Password" (or "Remember Me") option ticked.
In other versions of Chrome, you need to do this instead:
#Click Tools then choose "Clear browsing data...". From the new interface that will pop up choose the items you want to clear. The default choices are good enough but you can add to the list by checking the other checkboxes shown.

The suggestions above are NOT a permanent cure - but they will help Chrome control its lust for memory.

This suggestion is a little more of a permanent cure than the suggestions above:

In Google Chrome, click the Wrench (or the 3 horizontal bars) icon, then Settings.
Click the "Show advanced settings..." link at the bottom of the Settings page.
UNCHECK the "Predict network actions to improve page load performance" option.
Then close the Settings page.