The feature was spotted a year ago, but is finally starting to take shape
Illustration: Google; Steven Winkelman
Summary
- Chrome offers customization options, but excessive extensions can impact performance and battery life.
- Google is addressing Chrome’s performance issues with a new Performance panel for users to monitor.
- Performance settings in Chrome are becoming more visible and accessible for everyday users to optimize browsing.
If you use Chrome for browsing, you may already be familiar with the number of customization options available to you. Depending on your needs, you might have several Chrome extensions and other add-ons running as you browse the web. That being said, the amount of bandwidth that Chrome consumes can take away from its performance, as well as your device’s battery life. Google is all too aware of this problem, and it’s been working on solutions for Chrome behind the scenes.
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Google tipster @Leopeva64 recently posted an update on X (formerly Twitter), including a screenshot of changes the company has made to an upcoming Performance panel for Chrome’s sidebar. In comparison to what the Performance panel looked like when previewed in testing back in November 2023, there’s now a new Browser Health section. This is on top of the Battery Saver and Memory Saver sections – also housed in the Performance tab – to help users get a better idea of how Chrome is impacting their browsing experience.
Understanding Chrome Performance settings
Google originally housed access to Performance preferences within the “More Tools” option of Chrome’s overflow menu. Now, it seems that it’s being listed as a standalone menu option, as it has appeared in recent versions of Chrome Canary. By accessing your performance preferences, you can gain quick insight into how much RAM Chrome is consuming as you browse. In turn, you can tweak these settings per Energy Saver or Memory Saver, for example, to limit how much Chrome is impacting your device.
Depending on the device you are using, these preferences may or may not be turned on by default. For example, Energy Saver isn’t triggered if you’re using Chrome in desktop (for obvious reasons). In any case, it seems that Google is moving toward making Performance settings more visible. In early 2023, many of them were still hidden behind flags while the company worked out the kinks. As seen in these most recent screenshots, they could soon be front-and-center for everyday Chrome users to leverage while browsing the web.
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