If something characterizes Chrome, the most used Google web browser worldwide, it is because of the large amount of resources it consumes. Especially RAM. If we have a computer with little memory and try to open several tabs at the same time we can see, literally, how this browser occupies it whole, making Windows go slow, even that it crashes. Luckily, there are extensions designed to help us solve this problem. And one of them is Auto Tab Discard .
Both Google Chrome and Firefox have their own functions that allow us to save RAM automatically. Both browsers are responsible for freezing and / or suspending tabs that have been in the background for a long time, without activity, so that, until we return to them (and in which case they reload), they do not consume memory.
Although these solutions work, the truth is that they are impractical. And they also barely give the user control over how they work. Therefore, if we have problems with the consumption of the RAM of our Chrome browser, it is best to use an extension such as Auto Tab Discard.
Auto Tab Discard: the best way to save RAM in Chrome
The main purpose of Auto Tab Discard is to discard all those tabs that have been inactive for some time automatically so that you can save as much RAM as possible in the browser.
This extension makes use of Chrome’s native function (tabs.discard) to discard memories, but offers users greater control over options.
The main features of this extension are:
- Accelerate Chrome by reducing the cost of RAM.
- It has a white list to prevent certain websites from hibernating.
- Suspended tabs reopen when we close the browser.
- The favicon shows the status of the tab.
- When the tab session is retrieved, all the information remains intact.
- JavaScript or any other command is not executed when a tab is suspended.
How it works and how to configure this extension in Chrome
In order to use this extension, all we have to do is download it from the Chrome Store. The extension is completely free, and in no time we will have it in operation.
Once installed, we can see to the right of the address bar its corresponding icon, a power button. If we click on it we can see some of the functions it offers to manually discard open tabs without having to wait for it to happen automatically.
If we select «Options» we can go to the program options menu. Here we will be able to configure the main program options. For example, the time we want to spend until the tabs are automatically suspended (default 600 seconds).
We can also configure a white list or the behavior of the tabs when suspended. We can also choose some conditions to prevent certain tabs from being suspended, such as, for example, if it is being used to play multimedia content, is fixed or has unsent changes.
Without a doubt, an excellent extension that will help us make Chrome consume less RAM and, incidentally, make our Windows not slow. If you have a computer with low memory, or simply want Chrome to do better, don’t hesitate to try Auto Tab Discard.
