How to speed up your Google Chrome browser

Does your Chrome browser feel like it’s running a bit slower than usual? These tips and tricks can help you give Google Chrome a speed boost. In a way, your web browser has become as important as your PC’s operating system.

Nearly everything you do, from email to social media, even document editing happens in your browser. You can even stream games right from a browser window. So if Chrome is feeling a little sluggish, that can hamper the whole experience. Here are a few things you can do to speed it up.

How to speed up your Google Chrome browser

1. Keep Chrome Updated

Each new version of Chrome contains new features, security fixes, and often performance improvements, so it’s possible updating to the latest version may help your speed woes. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll keep you safer from online threats.

2. Preload Pages Before Opening

Chrome has a feature that allows it to “predict” which links it thinks you might open and preload in the background. That way, if you do click the link, it will already be partially loaded. You can enable this feature by going to Settings > Privacy and Security > Cookies and Other Site Data. Toggle the switch on for “Preload pages for faster browsing and searching.”

3. Get Your Tabs Under Control

Chrome has some built-in tools to help mitigate the performance impact of having a lot of tabs open, but keeping your tabs tidy on your own will help even more. There are a couple of things you can do if you’re someone that constantly has tons of tabs open. The easiest thing to do is use Chrome’s Reading List and Bookmarks features. That way, you can save pages for later without actually keeping them open in a tab.

4. Turn On Energy Saver

As the name implies, Chrome’s Energy Saver feature is intended to help improve battery life when your laptop is unplugged. However, it can also be used to speed up performance in a pinch. Energy Saver limits background activity, visual effects, and video frame rates. 

5. Enable Hardware Acceleration

Hardware acceleration is a feature that allows Chrome to take advantage of your computer’s or your smartphone’s GPU to speed up processes. Hardware can perform some functions faster than software running on the CPU alone. When enabled, Chrome will utilize your computer’s or smartphone’s GPU for graphics-intensive tasks, like playing games and watching videos. It’s typically enabled by default but can be disabled if there are driver compatibility issues. 

6. Check Chrome’s Task Manager

If you feel like Chrome is particularly sluggish, there might be a rogue extension causing it. Chrome has its own built-in task manager that lets you see what’s running in the browser extensions, web pages, and apps and how many resources each individual thing is using.

7. Clean Up Your Extensions

Similar to how you might have apps on your phone that you don’t use anymore, there are probably some extensions in Chrome that you could get rid of. They could be running in the background and eating up resources.

8. Clear Your Browsing Data

Chrome collects a lot of data while you’re browsing to improve your experience. All this site data, cookies, and cached images and files can add up over time. Occasionally clearing this data can potentially lighten up your browser, but it also means you’ll need to re-sign-in to websites.

9. Reset Without Uninstalling

The “nuclear option” for speeding up Chrome is performing a browser reset. This will essentially bring Chrome back to the way it was when you first installed it while still saving some of your personal stuff. A browser reset will reset the search engine, homepage, startup tabs, new tab page, pinned tabs, content settings, cookies, site data, extensions, and themes. However, it will not erase your bookmarks, browser history, or saved passwords.