This is the Google Chrome setting that finally succeeded in reducing RAM consumption. Google recommends activating it
Google Chrome is world-famous, and in fact, it's the most widely used browser worldwide. This is due to two of its main strengths: its speed and reliability. However, it has a weakness that has always been with it: it consumes a large amount of RAM. The good news is that we can now fix it.
Regardless of the type of computer you have, Google Chrome always consumes a significant amount of RAM, so it's safe to say that it's not the most suitable browser if your computer is already a few years old. Because of this drawback, it's not uncommon for our computer to run slowly or for its fans to run at full speed. Not to mention that if we open several tabs at the same time, consumption increases significantly. But now that's all changed. It's all due to a simple configuration within the browser, which Google itself points out on the Google Chrome help page.
Google Chrome's high RAM usage is (or has been) its biggest historical drawback. But it looks like this trend is about to change in the future. The switch can be found in the "Memory Savings" tool. This function allows us to choose between three modes: Moderate, Balanced, and Maximum. Each will determine how quickly Chrome frees up memory from inactive tabs. To access this setting, simply press the three vertical buttons and click the "Settings" option, as you can see in this image:
Once we click on Settings, in the column on the left, we should select the "Performance" option. In the panel that appears in the middle, we will be able to see the "Memory" options:
From this section, we can choose which power-saving mode we want to set for our browser. This is done by freeing up memory from inactive tabs. This allows you to divert more resources to your active tabs or directly to other applications on your computer. However, it keeps Google Chrome running optimally. It has three configuration modes:
- Medium: Inactive tabs take longer to deactivate than other modes.
- Balanced (recommended by your browser): Inactive tabs are disabled in a shorter time than the Moderate option.
- Maximum: Your inactive tabs will be deactivated after a shorter period of time, practically when we select another tab.
Of course, any of these three settings will work if you enable the "Power Saving" option. You can do this using the activator you can see inside the red box in the image above.