How to improve Chrome performance

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Chrome's hidden settings hide a lot of tasty options that can speed up your favorite browser.

Faster, higher, stronger! This Olympic motto appears to be driving the Chrome development team. The browser is constantly updated, improving its characteristics and adding new options. But some of the implemented features are simply not available to users. They are resting in the experimental settings menu and awaiting release. Let's stop tormenting them in dungeon! What for? Activating some experimental settings can speed up your favorite Chrome.

Lifehacker readers may recall that they have already seen similar material on blog pages. And they will be right. We've already introduced you to the hidden settings of Chrome for Android.

The older desktop version of the browser and the younger mobile have a common genome, so we will repeat a number of settings, but we will not forget to mention a few new ones.

Go to the experimental options menu

Enter the command in the address bar of your browser chrome: // flags … Chrome will redirect you to a hidden menu with a lot of advanced settings. Don't be too intimidated by the warning sign.

In most cases, you will not face browser crashes and other troubles, although no one excludes the possibility of problems.

Diving into the settings

The settings menu is extensive, so it is easier to navigate through it using search commands. Press the key combination Ctrl + F and enter one or more prompts.

max-tiles-for-interest-area

Basically, this setting determines the amount of RAM that Chrome allocates for rendering pages. The page scrolling should be smoother. You may need to experiment with the suggested numbers to find the best value in terms of performance and memory consumption.

num-raster-threads

Tired of waiting for images to load? This tweak will increase the rendering speed of Chrome images. Change the number of raster streams to the maximum.

enable-spdy4

The SPDY protocol is designed to speed up the transfer of data on the Web, and, accordingly, to reduce the loading time of web pages and their elements. This option will not help on all sites, but only on pages that support the protocol, for example Facebook.

enable-offline-mode

If your internet connection has a habit of dropping, allow your browser to load the cached version of the pages.

enable-experimental-canvas-features

The tuning is aimed at speeding up loading and improving the performance of canvases - HTML5 elements responsible for rendering bitmap 2D images using scripts.

touch-events

Enable this option if you are using a touch device: iPad, Microsoft Surface, or any computer with a touchscreen. This should significantly improve the performance of Chrome.

force-universal-accelerated-composited-scrolling

The setting improves scrolling on especially long pages.

enable-fast-unload

Even the banal closing of windows and tabs sometimes takes a "strange" amount of time. Activate the option to speed up the closing process.

conflicting-modules-check

There is nothing worse than crashing your browser at the most inopportune moment. Activate the tweak, and Chrome will pre-check third-party plug-ins that can lead to abnormal situations.

Checking the results

To apply the set values, just restart the browser. The corresponding button is located at the bottom of the menu.

The suggested settings do not guarantee you a stunning effect at all. In some cases, on the contrary, problems may arise. If you encounter "brakes" or incorrect operation of the browser, just roll back to the original settings. Return to the menu and click on the "Restore Defaults" button.

Have you noticed an improvement in Chrome after changing the settings? Share your impressions.