5 tips to speed up Google’s Chrome browser if it has begun to lag

Q: It seems like Chrome is getting slower (using Windows), so should I consider another browser or can I do something to speed it up?

A: Google’s Chrome browser is used by more than 60% of the world and is by far the most popular browser as well as one of the fastest.

Its global popularity is why there are so many excellent extensions that have been created for it.

However, this plethora of extensions can be one of many reasons your browsing experience can be noticeably slower.

A quick test would be to close all tabs, restart Chrome, and then open an Incognito Window (Ctrl-Shift-N) which won’t load the extensions. If everything seems faster, this is where you should start.

Unneeded Extensions

Each extension that’s added increases the task load on Chrome, so disabling or removing them is a quick way to see if any of them are contributing factors.

To manage your extensions, click on the three vertical dots in the upper right corner of the browser window, then select ‘More Tools’ and then ‘Extensions.’

This will display the extensions that are installed with a blue slider on the bottom right corner of each item. Sliding it to the left will disable the extension or if you have no need for it, click the ‘Remove’ button.

Memory Saver

If you’re like most users, you tend to open a lot of tabs and keep them open for long periods of time. Each open tab will increase the memory usage which can cause your computer to slow down.

Closing unneeded tabs can help, but if you want to keep them all available, try turning on the ‘Memory Saver’ option just below the ‘Extensions’ option in the ‘More Tools’ menu.

This tells Chrome to deactivate tabs that you aren’t currently using and reload them when you access inactive tabs. If there are sites that you don’t want deactivated in the background, you can add them to the ‘Always keep these sites active’ list.

Add Working Memory

If you know that you’re not going to be able to kick the “too many open tabs” habit, adding RAM (Random Access Memory) will provide more working space for your computer to manage the load.

When your computer runs out of working memory, it resorts to creating temporary working memory on your hard drive, which is much slower.

Clear Your Cache

All browsers store elements of websites that you have visited so on the next visit, it can load the page faster with those locally stored elements.

Over time, you can fill up your cache or there may be corruption in the stored files that can cause slower performance.

Keep in mind, part of what gets stored in your cache are cookies that automatically log you into your commonly used online accounts. Clearing the cookies will mean that you’ll be asked to sign in the next time you visit those websites: https://bit.ly/3I7cEJz

Malware and Updates

Make sure you do a full malware scan and when you see ‘Update’ in the upper right corner next to the three dots, this means that Chrome has downloaded an update and that you need to restart your browser to finish the process.