Google Chrome takes up a lot of RAM and this, although there have been improvements in memory management, is a common fact for all computers. RAM consumption on Chrome (this applies to any other program) is higher if you are using a PC with Windows 64 bit rather than on a 32 bit PC (but it is assumed that on the 64 bit PC there are at least 8 GB of RAM) .
However, if the use of RAM becomes too much and excessive consumption, the computer can slow down a lot or even freeze if it has more limited memory.
This consumption depends not only on the quantity and type of sites you use to open (and on the number of tabs open at the same time), but also on active extensions and background applications.
This is because Chrome, over time, has become a browser platform that not only serves to open websites, but also to use web applications as if they were mobile apps.
Here are functions such as background notifications, the ability to open Gmail and Google Drive even without internet connection, the ability to keep your favorites synchronized, the password manager, the cloud printer and several other internal functions.
In any case, you can reduce the consumption of RAM in Google Chrome in several ways .
To begin with, you need to find out how much RAM Chrome is using .
The first thing that would come to mind is to open the Windows task manager and check how much Chrome occupies in the RAM column.
Then press the right mouse button on the taskbar, open the Task Manager, press on more details (if the processes tab does not appear immediately), go to the Processes tab, press on Memory and note how many Chrome processes there are that occupy RAM .
From this window, however, you do not understand what all those processes are and you have no indication on how to solve the problem if the RAM occupied is too much.
Better then open the Chrome task manager, which is located by the button with three dots of Chrome, the one at the top right, going to Other tools .
The task manager is able to tell us the RAM consumption of each open card and any installed extension that remains active in the background.
You can then decide to remove the heavier extensions and recover efficiency and speed of execution on the PC.
Also from the Task Manager it is also possible to find out if a website takes all the RAM memory of the computer.
In this case, it may be best to avoid visiting it often.
After removing the heavier extensions, you can reduce Google Chrome's RAM consumption further with selective suspension of tabs .
This mechanism removes the non-displayed cards from the RAM that remain in the background and reloads them only if they are clicked again.
These cards are not closed, but it is as if they were.
In this regard it must be considered that Chrome cancels cards in the background when the RAM runs out, automatically.
Unless you decide to disable this option (as explained in the linked guide), you will notice that on a PC with less than 4 GB of RAM, if you open many tabs on Chrome, many of these automatically reload when selected.
This behavior can be annoying, but allows Chrome not to slow down and completely freeze the PC.
Extensions to reduce RAM on Chrome
To improve the suspension function of inactive cards, it is advisable to use an extension called The Great Suspender which keeps Chrome light (but this extension has not been updated since 2015) or OneTab, which frees RAM in Chrome automatically.
To date, OneTab is a better choice, because it is more intelligent, capable of crashing all open tabs and restoring them with a click.
The TabMemFree extension is also good, which suspends inactive tabs after a certain period of time.
Tab Wrangler is another of the extensions to suspend inactive tabs in Chrome.
Toomanytabs is the extension to manage many open tabs.
With TooManyTabs you can choose which tabs to temporarily close and then reopen them when you need them, so you never keep too many simultaneously and limit the amount of RAM that Chrome uses, also making it easier to manage open sites.
Another extension that greatly reduces memory consumption on Chrome is the use of extensions that activate the reading mode in Chrome without advertising on the sites.
You can also set aside a super fast Chrome launcher icon without extensions, to be used when you want to check information or browse in a standard way, like using a different browser.
Finally, there is a trick that can save memory with Chrome, by starting the browser so that it does not start a process for every open tab, but for every open site .
To get this process management mode in Chrome you need to close the browser, right click on the Chrome shortcut on the desktop and enter the properties.
In the window that opens, at the destination box, add a space and the parameter --process-per-site at the end of the line.
Then the target line will be: "C: \ Program Files \ Google \ Chrome \ Application \ chrome.exe" --process-per-site (the path of chrome.exe may be different), click on Apply and then on OK.
Restarting Chrome by launching it from this modified link you will get a management of processes by site and not by card.
