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Chrome slows down your laptop? Google’s new performance controls could help the browser run faster

Pabio October 30, 2024

Google introduces new measures to help streamline Chrome’s resource usage and make the web browser run smoother, including updates to existing features.

Google announced the new initiatives, which are currently rolling out, in a blog postand the centerpiece of the changes here is a new “Performance Detection” tool.

The feature proactively checks for performance issues and provides an immediate solution to the user. So if you’re browsing a demanding website and things slow down a bit, Chrome might step in to suggest that the stack of other tabs you have open could be disabled to free up system resources.

Google notes that you’ll be offered a “performance issue alert” and this notification will be accompanied by a button to “fix now,” so it’s essentially a one-click fix for any hogging issues resources – in theory at least.

Google also strengthened its existing memory saver function which frees RAM from being gobbled up by inactive browser tabs. This now has three settings: moderate, balanced and maximum (as said previously, although the settings had different names in a past leak).

With moderate mode, Google says Chrome disables inactive tabs based on “your system’s needs,” while maximum mode disables them more quickly once you leave a given tab.

Balanced mode balances the needs of your system and your browsing habits. As you might expect, this is a middle ground (tabs that become inactive take longer to come back to life when you return to them, so the maximum setting is aggressive, and not ideal in this regard).

Finally, Google introduced new options for adjusting Chrome’s performance controls. So if there is a website that you never want to leave idle with Memory Saver, you can specify it (if it is a site that runs in the background for example). . It is also possible to disable parts of the interface related to this feature, such as the icon indicating that a tab is inactive and details about memory usage for a tab.

A younger student possibly studying remotely using a Chromebook laptop

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Pramata)

Analysis: More “go faster” bands for Chrome

Google brings some useful extensions here to get better performance with Chrome, but of course, all these features are optional – you don’t need to enable them. If you don’t like the idea of your browser confronting you with performance alerts, the new performance detection tool can simply be disabled.

Chrome is famous for being considered a memory intensive and generally slow software historicallybut that perception is slowly (ahem) changing, as Google works more on features like this to help the browser become a more streamlined force in the world of web browsing.

Despite this, Chrome is by no means considered the fastest web browser on the market. But it’s definitely getting better, even if Microsoft Edge remains the first choice in our overview of best web browsersand is noticeably snappier (although it’s still not perfect in some ways, it’s worth noting).

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Chrome slows down your laptop? Google’s new performance controls could help the browser run faster

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Chrome slows down your laptop? Google’s new performance controls could help the browser run faster

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