Chrome slowing down your laptop? Googles new performance controls could help the browser run faster

Date:
Wed, 30 Oct 2024 12:38:51 +0000

Description:
Google keeps pushing with features to provide peppier performance for its web browser, and here are some fresh additions on that front.

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Google is bringing in some new measures to help streamline Chromes resource usage and make the web browser run more smoothly, including updates to existing functionality.

Google announced the fresh moves, which are rolling out now, in a blog post , and the centerpiece of the changes here is a new Performance Detection tool.

The feature proactively looks for performance issues and offers an immediate solution to the user. So, if youre browsing a demanding website and things
are slowing down a bit, Chrome might chip in to suggest that the pile of
other tabs you have open could be deactivated to free up system resources.

Google notes youll be offered a performance issue alert and this notification will come with a button to fix now, so this is essentially a single click fix for any resource hogging problems in theory, anyway.

Google has also bolstered its existing Memory Saver feature which frees up
RAM from being gobbled by inactive browser tabs. This now has three settings: moderate, balanced and maximum ( as previously rumored, although the settings went by different names in a past leak ).

With moderate mode, Google says that Chrome deactivates inactive tabs based
on your systems needs whereas maximum mode deactivates them more swiftly
after you switch away from any given tab.

Balanced mode strikes a balance between your system needs and browsing
habits, so as youd expect, its a middle road (tabs which go inactive take longer to come back to life when you do return to them, so the maximum
setting is aggressive, and not ideal in this respect).

Finally, Google has brought in some new options to tweak Chromes performance controls, so if theres a website you dont ever want to be inactive with
Memory Saver, you can specify this (if its a site that works in the
background for example). Its also possible to turn off parts of the interface related to this functionality, such as the icon showing a tab is inactive,
and details on memory usage for a tab. (Image credit: Shutterstock/Pramata) Analysis: More 'go-faster' stripes for Chrome

Google is making some useful expansions here in terms of achieving better performance with Chrome, but of course, all these features are optional you dont have to turn them on. If you dont like the idea of your browser confronting you with performance alerts, the new Performance Detection tool can simply be disabled.

Chrome has famously been regarded as a memory hog and generally a sluggish piece of software historically , but that perception is slowly (ahem) changing, as Google puts more work into features like this to help the
browser become a more streamlined force in the world of web browsing.

Even so, Chrome is not regarded as the fastest web browser out there by any means. But its definitely improving, although Microsoft Edge remains the top pick in our roundup of the best web browsers , and is notably nippier (though still not perfect in some respects, it should be noted). You might also like Chrome could revolutionize search on PC with a big Google Lens upgrade that lets you Circle to Search images This handy feature has been promised to ChromeOS users for a while now - so where is it? Not interested in Chrome? Here's how to use Microsoft Edge



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/chrome/chrome-slowing-down-your-laptop-goo gles-new-performance-controls-could-help-the-browser-run-faster


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