Google Chrome: Best Ways To Reduce Memory Usage

10/20/2022

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When using Google Chrome for web research, are you experiencing computer performance issues?

Undoubtedly, Google Chrome is the best and most potent browser! Chrome is the go-to browser for daily browsing for millions of people. The majority of you are already aware that Chromium powers Google Chrome. Microsoft has also migrated its well-liked Edge browser to the Chromium Engine. Despite being strong and dependable, one of the major issues with Google Chrome is how much RAM it consumes. In the off event that it runs in the background, it uses a lot of RAM. 

Do you use Google Chrome and are you having the same problem? We’ll show you how to free up RAM and set a restriction on Google Chrome’s memory consumption in this article.

What Causes Chrome to Consume So Much RAM?

It would help if you comprehended why Google Chrome’s high RAM or memory usage. Here are the full justifications:

  • Opening live streaming websites, cloud applications, and social media pages frequently use more RAM. Because they use your computing resources to process stuff on your web browser before sending it to you.
  • Google Chrome divides a web page’s content among many processes so that the entire tab will continue to function if one fails. Multiple methods require dedicated RAM space on your Windows or macOS computer. RAM use per process rises as the number of tabs does as well.
  • Chrome prerendering speeds up the loading of the target website but uses a lot of RAM.
  • Ad blockers, YouTube extensions, and social network extensions all function continuously in the background as extensions that directly interact with web page content. Therefore, background processes continue to use up computer memory.
  • Some websites and extensions could eat up all of the network, CPU, and RAM while mining cryptocurrencies.

How Can I Free Up RAM By Reducing Google Chrome’s Memory Usage?

1. Close unnecessary tabs.

As was already noted, Google Chrome utilizes more RAM for its activities the more tabs you have open. Therefore, you can launch Chrome and dismiss all the undesirable open tabs if you notice that it performs strangely by consuming a lot of RAM. Sometimes a significant amount of RAM is released after closing specific websites. To do this:

  • Open Google Chrome and look for any tabs that should not be open.
  • Now move your pointer to the tab and press the (x) or close button on the tab’s right side.
  • You may now see a significant amount of RAM returning.

2. Activate Hardware Acceleration.

  1. Open Chrome and select the Menu option. For those who are unaware, the Menu button appears as three dots in the top right corner of your screen.
  2. Click to open Settings .
  3. Once the settings page has loaded, go to the bottom where you will see an Advanced Settings button.
  4. In the window that appears after clicking the Advanced Settings button, locate and enable the Use hardware acceleration when available toggle under the System settings.
  5. Now, swiftly close the Google Chrome program and reopen it.
  6. Enter chrome:/gpu/ in the address bar of Google Chrome after it has fully opened (you may also copy-paste).
  7. This will now show if GPU Rendering or hardware acceleration is on or off.

3. Remove any unnecessary browser extensions.

As was already said, having more installed extensions and tabs can increase memory utilization.

Therefore, it is advised to disable or delete any extension you haven’t used in a while. Sometimes, the toolbars and plugins you use on your browser can interfere with how quickly your website loads, using up RAM. Unwanted browser extensions should be disabled or removed:

  1. Open Chrome and select the menu option. For those who are unaware, the Menu button appears as three dots in the top right corner of your screen.
  2. Place the pointer on the More tools option at this point, and Extensions will appear.
  3. You can locate all of your installed extensions on the page that opens when you click on Extensions.
  4. Just click the uninstall button to get rid of undesirable extensions.

4. Disable the Site Isolation Feature Tabs.

  1. Activate Google Chrome
  2. Type chrome:/flags into the address bar (or copy-paste it), then click Enter.
  3. Find Strict site isolation by typing it into the search bar at the top of the page.
  4. Once it has been found, set the option’s entry to Enabled. Now, swiftly close the Google Chrome program and reopen it.  
  5. By doing this, Google Chrome’s Site Isolation feature will be activated.

5.   Use a Prediction service to load pages faster.

1.    Open Chrome and select the menu option. For those unaware, the Menu button appears as three dots in the top right corner of your screen.

2.  Click to open Settings right now. When the settings page loads, scroll down until you find the Use a Prediction service to load websites more rapidly

3.    Turn it on or enable it.

6. Reinstall or reset Google Chrome

You can easily remove Google Chrome and reinstall it to reduce Google Chrome memory use if you have tried all the methods mentioned above without success. Or, you can try resetting Google Chrome, which will reset the search engine, homepage, and other settings when you use it.

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How to Use Chrome Extensions to Reduce Memory Usage

Below are a few well-known Google Chrome extensions that can help you reduce Chrome’s memory usage:

1. The Great Suspender Original

You can suspend inactive tabs with the aid of the Chrome extension The Great Suspender Original. You can test out tab suspension without closing any open tabs because you will have to search through a lengthy surfing history if you require the closed tabs later.

Therefore, it is convenient to utilize the tab suspension technique to lower Chrome memory utilization when conducting in-depth online research. Suspended tabs put an active website into sleep mode. In this situation, the website cannot load content, play videos, update data, or perform other background processes that might otherwise consume system memory.

Additionally, this extension enables you to manage many open tabs effectively. You can easily find the tab you need for your study job as a consequence. The following are a few of this extension’s amazing features:

  • Unused tabs or webpages can be suspended with a simple click.
  • By scheduling, you may also automate the tab suspension procedure.
  • When necessary, restore a single broken tab or several.
  • For effective administration of open Chrome sites, create tab groups.

More than 200,000 users use this plugin to reduce RAM utilization. In addition to English, the utility is available in 22 other languages.

2. Memory Saver

Memory Saver automates the process of deleting inactive Chrome tabs. The associated background processes are terminated when a tab is closed. The website no longer makes use of your computer’s network, RAM, CPU, or other resources.

Tab removal manually is a tiring process. You can therefore install this Chrome extension to lower Chrome’s memory use. Installing the Memory Saver extension does not burden your computer’s resources because it is a lightweight utility.

You can configure a cut-off memory in the Main Settings section. The utility automatically discard tabs if system memory drops below this number. The tool’s low memory scan interval can be manually specified.

Additionally, you can choose how long an inactive tab should remain before being deleted. When you activate the tool’s disable tab option, you will observe that the number of processes running Google Chrome has been practically cut in half.

3. TooManyTabs

A competent tab manager for Chrome with a built-in memory saver is called TooManyTabs. Using this tool, you may see a bird’s-eye view of all the open tabs in your Chrome browser. How does that assist you, one could wonder.

You can hardly distinguish the websites if you open more than 15 on your Chrome browser. Additionally, the order of the tabs can be forgotten. Not to mention, the computer can become really slow if it doesn’t have 8+ GB of internal RAM.

You should test out this Chrome extension to overcome these difficulties. You can see all of the open tabs in a column view in its left-side pane. Additionally, you may easily arrange them according to creation time, name, and website URL.

The right-side panel contains the details for closed and suspended tabs. Suspend a tab by clicking on the arrow next to it. If you enable it from the tool’s options menu, it can also provide a website preview for you to view.

4. OneTab

Another well-liked tab management extension that conserves PC RAM is OneTab. With more than 13,000 users, the tool has a 4.5 rating. Over 2 million Google Chrome users have already used this plugin to free up space and lower memory use.

When conducting online research, having so many tabs open makes it simple to get exhausted. You can add every tab to OneTab in list form so that you don’t have to go through them individually for content tracking.

You may quickly organize your study by determining which tabs contain whatever website from the list. Google Chrome ends background processes that use up your computer’s resources when you transmit open tabs to OneTab.

Avoiding duplicate pages is one of this tool’s biggest features. You can conserve RAM space by preventing the same websites from opening more than once.

5. Tab Snooze

A useful Chrome addon for productivity, Tab Snooze aids in maintaining concentration when conducting online research. Along with managing numerous open tabs, it also reduces the RAM usage of open tabs.

From 4,457 users, it has received an average rating of 4.7. Additionally, the Chrome Web Store reveals that the tool to clear tab clutter has been tried or used by more than 70,000 users. The extension is small and uses very little CPU or RAM.

The extension will appear as a sickle-shaped moon icon once installed. You can choose to sleep later today, tomorrow, next weekend, and other times if you click on that. To snooze an open tab, choose any of the alternatives.

You can see a list of snoozed tabs by clicking on the number that shows in the extension’s lower-left corner.

6. TabMemFree

TabMemFree provides a totally automatic remedy for Google Chrome memory consumption. Through the offloading process, the plugin helps reduce the amount of system resources required by unused tabs.

The operation is unaffected by the name, title, or symbol of the tab on the Chrome browser. It suspends itself so the website’s embedded scripts don’t use the CPU, RAM, or network.

You can use the addon with any open Chrome window. You only need to click once to turn the extension on or off. Managing the extension is easy because you must set the Tab Timeout and Check Period times.

The extension will search for tabs that have not been used for at least 15 minutes in accordance with the checking time. Then, to conserve resources, the utility will empty the unused tabs.

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Conclusion

Too much memory or RAM usage by computer programs has long been a major problem for consumers. The issue becomes a headache, especially if you are not using a gaming or high-performance workstation.

Google Chrome consumes a lot of RAM. This is a significant problem with computers with average or low configurations. You must realize that the browser uses a lot of computer power to provide convenient usage that other browsers might not be able to.

Therefore, you can use any of the earlier stated techniques to decrease Chrome’s memory use.

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