Hello everybody!
In today’s video, you will see how to improve performance of your Internet browser and make
it work faster without lagging.
I will show you some tips with Google Chrome, but they will work fine with any other browser
as well.
Let’s begin with the basic stuff, even though you may know it without watching this video.
The first thing to consider is the specifications of your computer.
I mean, if your PC is relatively weak by today’s standards, but you install the latest resource-consuming
software, with more extensions and add-ons on top - you shouldn't be surprised to see
freezes and lags.
So here are a few essential recommendations for people using old or low-end computers:
• avoid installing too many extensions (keep only the ones that you really need);
• try not to open many tabs at once (in fact, you can get any browser to the lagging
point by opening just a dozen or two of tabs); • clean your browser and operating system
regularly (a bit later, I will show you how to do it);
• Don’t install unnecessary plugins, for example, Adblock, which is designed to keeps
ads away.
Okay, on the one hand, this plugin removes ads so your computer doesn’t have to waste
its resources on loading and displaying them; but on the other hand, before a webpage is
loaded, the plugin has to scan it and remove the ads, which makes the browser work slower
than you expect.
Keep on watching this video, and I will show you how to solve this problem.
Also, a conventional hard disk has recently become the true bottleneck for the computer’s
performance.
And guess what?
most users have computers with the only hard disk being the HDD type.
One more thing - any browser has a cache and it is stored on the hard disk.
So many cases of lagging actually result from having a disk that’s too slow.
The point is that SSDs - unlike the conventional hard disks - have no moving parts, platters
and heads.
That’s why their data transfer rate is considerably higher.
Today, the best and most effective way to speed up your computer is by switching to
an SSD, so if you’re planning an upgrade, I recommend placing the good old HDD with
its more advanced successor, the SSD.
For example, in my computer disk C is an SSD, and disk D is a tradition HDD storage.
Let’s check their read and write speeds with a special tool, CrystalDiskMark.
The difference is obvious.
That is why you should install the operating system and applications to the SSD.
And that means, your browser, too.
Probably this could be the only component to upgrade, while you can leave the old HDD
as the second disk in your computer and use it to keep your files.
However, an Internet browser may be lagging not only because your computer is a low-end
one.
This misfortune sometimes happens to high-end rigs as well.
Then how to find out why the browser is so slow?
Use the task manager in your browser to see what exactly slows it down.
In Windows Task Manager, you can see how much your processor is loaded, how much memory
your browser is using in general and by separate tabs.
Few people know that almost every browser also has its own task manager so you can see
how much resources are consumed by the browser plugins and separate tabs.
For example, to open a task manager in Chrome: • When the browser window is open, press
Shift+Esc to start the built-in task manager.
You can also open it using the main menu: More tools - Task manager.
• When the task manager is running, you can see the list of opened tabs and how much
they use the system memory and processor of your computer.
If you notice that a certain tab consumes considerable processor resources, there must
be some undesirable activity going on.
It could be a malicious process, for example.
• If you like, you can right-click anywhere on the task manager to display more columns
with additional information.
• Generally speaking, never mind the fact that almost every website is going to use
over 100 MB of system memory (on condition that you have modules of sufficient memory
size installed in your computer).
It’s absolutely OK and things are meant to be exactly that way to ensure better browser
performance.
However, if there’s a website consuming an outstanding amount of system memory, it’s
always a good idea to have a closer look and maybe end the process.
• The column GPU Memory in the browser task manager displays hardware graphics acceleration.
If this process puts a lot of pressure on the CPU, it should look strange.
Something might be wrong with the graphics drivers, or you can try disabling hardware
graphics acceleration in the browser settings.
You can also try this method if the browser is lagging when you scroll the page down (that
is, it takes a long time to display all the elements of the page and so on).
• The task manager of your browser can also display the load generated by browser extensions.
Sometimes it happens that the extension you need every day is the actual source of all
lags.
However, sometimes looking at the task manager cannot help you to find out what slows it
down so much.
That is why I’m going to give you some general recommendations and consider several most
widespread things to make a browser feel so sluggish.
1.
Close the tabs you don’t need.
The more tabs you open, the more system memory is used.
So try to never keep open the tabs you are not going
to use.
2.
Disable the unnecessary and extensions.
It seems to be a simple and obvious measure.
The more extensions are enabled, the slower is your browser.
So it’s better to disable or even remove the extensions you don’t use every day.
Install only those that you can’t do without.
3.
Clean the browser cache.
Cache is a special folder on your computer where the browser saves certain elements of
the web pages you visit.
Over time, the size of this folder can grow enormously, especially if it is not limited
in the browser settings.
In its turn, the browser is trying to save as many elements as possible for the websites
you visit regularly.
Theoretically, in can help to load webpages more quickly, but if your Internet connection
is fast enough and your storage not too big, it’s better to clean the oversized cache.
The browser works much slower when it has to address the cache all the time and search
necessary elements among thousands of entries.
Open your browser settings to find options for cleaning history, cookies and cache.
By default, most browsers use the key combination Ctrl+Shift+Del (it works in Opera, Chrome
and Firefox).
After your press this combination, a window will appear where you can choose what should
be cleaned.
Select the data to be removed and the time range.
Clear the data.
4.
Plugins and extensions.
The best advice would be to never install extensions you don’t need.
Keeping numerous extensions for the reason “what if I need it one day” doesn’t
seem wise at all.
Usually you can remove unnecessary extensions just by opening a certain page in the browser
settings, selecting a specific extension and uninstalling it.
Usually this actions requires you to restart the browser so that the extension is removed
without trace.
5.
Cleaning your Windows.
In addition to cleaning the browser cache, it is also recommended to clean your operating
system from time to time.
Also, optimizing the operating system will certainly improve your computer's performance.
There’s quite a number of videos on this topic in our channel, so I will leave the
links to some of them in the description.
6.
Viruses, advertisements and strange-looking processes.
Advertising elements have to be mentioned in any case.
They tend to integrate themselves into your browser after installation of some small-sized
app.
Too often, many users click “next”, “next, “ok” without noticing those small checkboxes
- but unless you tick them off you actually agree to install all the ad elements you don’t
actually need.
As a result, your computer ends up full of all kinds of adware of malware that slows
down virtually everything: your browser, your Internet connection speed, and your computer
in general.
What are the general symptoms suggesting that your browser has been infected?
• ads appearing suddenly on websites where they never did before (all kinds of teasers,
links and so on); • new tabs opening on their own - usually
these contain work offers, adult content websites etc;
• offers to send an SMS to unlock access to various websites (especially social networks);
• new buttons and icons appearing in the browser’s toolbar.
In any of these cases, I recommend checking your browser for viruses, advertisement elements
and other junk stuff.
You can see how to do it by watching corresponding videos in our channel.
You will find the links in the description.
However, if you are an advanced user and you’re sure that you don’t have the issues I have
just mentioned, but you do feel your browser should work faster - all right, here are some
tricks to accelerate it even more.
One of them is: To change the browser cache size.
So, as long as we realize the main bottleneck is the cache (located on the hard disk), it
is evident that by reducing the cache size you can make the browser address the hard
disk less often, and hence, respond faster to your actions.
In order to reduce cache size for Chrome, Yandex Browser and other products based on
Chromium, just add the following value to the browser start line.
--disk-cache-size=104857600 The easiest way to do it is by editing the
shortcut that you use to start the browser.
The cache size in this value is given in bytes.
For example, the value you can see is 100 Mb.
The less value you set, the less will the browser depend on the hard disk performance.
You can even try and set the minimal cache size of 1 byte.
In fact, it means you’re going to proceed without cache at all.
Which is actually the same as cleaning the cache after each browsing session.
To change the browser cache size in Chrome, as in my case:
• right-click on the shortcut that you use to start the browser.
• Select Properties / Shortcut • Add the value I have specified into the
field “Target” The figure actually sets the cache size in bytes.
• Apply/ Ok.
However, there’s a chance that some websites may suffer from slow response after such modification.
Especially it concerns frequently visited websites with complicated design patterns.
That is why it is better to set the cache size where at least some data could fit - for
example, 10 Mb = 1 250 000.
Even for the slowest of hard disks, it would be the happy medium.
The next method is to Put cache into the random-access memory.
For those ready to push it further and get the most of their browser, there’s one more
thing to try.
Create a special disk in the system memory and put the folder containing browser cache
onto that disk.
It really works: your RAM operates at speeds many times higher than a solid-state drive,
to say nothing of the good old HDD.
Not surprisingly, though, that we do have a special video on the topic.
Watch it by following the link in the description:
Yet you can’t win anything by just changing the cache folder.
The trick is to have it in the random-access memory.
There is no way you can do it with Windows tools as users are not supposed to do anything
to the RAM.
That is why you will need some extra software.
All of that you can see in a special video.
Find the link in the description.
However, you should remember that the contents of such Ramdisk is going to be removed as
soon as you shut down your PC.
Hopefully, this video will be useful for both novice and advanced users.
That is all for now.
If you want to see more stuff like this, hit the Like button and subscribe to Hetman Software.
Thank you for watching.
Good luck.