The H.A.C.K.E.R. Project

There are many useful features built into Google’s Chrome web browser that allow you to customize it to your liking. Three such features- Memory Saver, Energy Saver, and Preloading- can help you save on computer resources, battery life, or time.

Where to Find These Settings

The first step to be able to change these settings is to open Google Chrome. Once Google Chrome has loaded, click on the three vertical dots in the upper corner, as shown in the image below. This opens the quick settings menu for Google Chrome. If you are on a Windows computer or laptop, pressing the “Alt + E” keys or the “Alt +F” keys will also open this menu.

Once this menu opens, navigate to the “Settings” option, which may have a gear icon next to it, as seen below. Alternatively, you can use the shortcut of “Command + ,” on MacBook. This will open the settings menu. You can also type chrome://settings/ into your search bar to navigate to this menu.

After the Settings page loads, click on the “Performance” option on the left side bar, as shown in the image below. It will have an icon that resembles a meter next to it.

This will open the Performance Menu. There are three primary options that can be enabled, disabled, or modified in this menu: Memory, Power, and Speed.

Memory & Memory Saver

The Memory Menu contains the Memory Saver feature. When Memory Saver is toggled on, Google Chrome will take memory away from inactive tabs or windows in order to reallocate this memory to active tabs or windows (Google). When a computer is running an application, the application utilizes memory in order to run. Computers only have a limited amount of memory that can be used, which means that a computer (specifically, the computer’s Operating System) must decide how to switch out various tasks or applications to best utilize its memory. For example, say that a college student has five textbooks (these books represent our applications) that they need for their classes, but has a backpack that can only fit two textbooks (the backpack is our memory). If the student needs to use more than two books during the day, they will have to swap out which textbooks are in their backpack and which ones they leave behind.

By enabling Memory Saver, Google Chrome will be able to tell the computer which tabs no longer require memory at the current time, allowing the computer to use this memory for other applications or other Google Chrome tabs. In some cases, this will unload parts of the webpage, and it may take a moment or two to reload the webpage once the tab becomes active again. Due to this, the Memory Saver option can allow your computer to run a bit faster. You can also choose to specify certain websites that, when opened in a tab, do not get marked as inactive (this will keep them loaded in). For example, if I never want my favorite news website to be marked as inactive, I can add the link to this website to make sure it always stays active.

To toggle on Memory Saver, click the toggle button on the Memory Saver option, as seen in the image below.

Power & Power Saver

The Power menu contains the Energy Saver feature. When Energy Saver is turned on, Google Chrome will limit various effects that webpages may display in order to save your computer’s battery power (Google). Generally, limiting these effects will not harm the quality of a webpage, but there are some cases that it can make a webpage or video look lower quality. In many cases, you may not even notice some of these visual effects being missing! You can choose whether to have Energy Saver enabled when your battery level is at 20% or lower or whenever your computer or laptop is unplugged.

To turn on Energy Saver, click the toggle button on the Energy Saver option, as seen in the image below.

Speed & Preload Pages

The Speed Menu contains the Preload Pages feature. When this feature is enabled, Google Chrome will automatically preload certain webpages that you routinely visit so that, when you navigate to them, they load faster than usual (Google). Essentially, Chrome will have the page “ready to go” as soon as you navigate to it, instead of Chrome having to load the page after you decide to navigate to it. To enable this feature, click the toggle button on the Preload Pages option, as seen in the image below.

In addition, there are two options for the Preload Pages feature that you can choose between: Standard Preloading and Extended Preloading. Standard Preloading is the basic feature of preloading frequently visited webpages (Google). Extended Preloading, however, tends to preload more pages, and can allow websites to preload other related or connected websites that you are likely to visit, as well (Google). For example, if you were to have Extended Preloading on, and you frequently visit thehackerproject.org, Chrome may also preload some of the articles feature on this website since it is possible you may want to view them. It is entirely up to you which preloading option you wish to utilize.

In Conclusion

Overall, these three options can allow you to use Chrome in a resource efficient, battery life/energy efficient, and time-saving way, and should definitely be considered if you are a frequent user of Google Chrome.

Resources & Further Reading

Google. “Personalize Chrome Performance – Google Chrome Help.” Support.google.com, Google, support.google.com/chrome/answer/12929150. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.