Browser Tips
Secret settings and the best extensions
CHROME
Fix performance problems with one click
Chrome is notorious for using lots of system memory and processing power, which can cause both the browser and your PC to freeze and crash. Over the past few years, Google has tried to remedy this problem by adding options to Chrome’s Performance settings, most notably its ‘Memory saver’ feature, which frees up RAM from inactive tabs.
Version 130 of the browser, released at the end of October, adds a new Performance option called ‘Performance issue alerts’, which gives you another way to deal with resource-hungry tabs. When it detects that a background tab is using more memory than it should, it displays a speedometer icon on Chrome’s toolbar.
Click this icon for details of the performance problem, then click ‘Fix now’ to deactivate the tab responsible, and reclaim its resources for the current tab. This new option should be enabled by default, but you can double-check by going into Chrome’s Performance settings (type chrome://settings/performance into the address bar) and ensuring ‘Performance issue alerts’ is switched on ( 1 in screenshot below).