A slow browsing experience on your smartphone can be a mood killer. It’s annoying when you want to urgently google something up and Chrome starts lagging. This becomes even worse when there’s an emergency and all you’re left with is a loading bar and a blank screen.
Fortunately, it’s easy to prevent this by speeding up Google Chrome on Android. There are some tips and tricks that will improve Google Chrome’s performance and offer you a smooth browsing experience. Let’s take a look.
1. Get Rid of Those Open Tabs
Tabs are instances of the Chrome browser. The more tabs you open, the more resources will be used. Therefore, it’s advised that you only open additional tabs when required and close them after each use.
Open tabs also lead to management issues. Finding a web page you’ve previously opened from a stack of 50 tabs is difficult. Instead, it’s better tocreate bookmarks for pages you frequently visitand close the tabs when you’re done working.
2. Use the Latest Google Chrome Version
Running an outdated version of Google Chrome can also cause the app to lag. This is because previous versions of the app might have bugs and other performance issues, which must have been fixed in the latest release by the developers.
Updating Google Chrome on Android is also important from a security point of view as older versions of software contain unpatched vulnerabilities. That’s why it’s crucial to use the latest version of all apps on your Android smartphone.
To update Google Chrome, launch Google Play Store and search for “Google Chrome.” Tap theUpdatebutton to start downloading the latest update.
3. Enable Parallel Downloads in Chrome
If you find yourself regularly downloading files from the internet, then better download speeds on Chrome will surely be of interest to you. If that’s the case, parallel downloading is what you’re looking for.
By default, Google Chrome downloads a file by making a single connection with the remote server. Parallel downloading increases download speeds by establishing multiple connections with the server and downloading the file in parts.
To enable parallel downloads on Google Chrome on Android, typechrome://flagsin the URL bar and hitEnter. Search for “parallel” and set theParallel downloadingoption toEnabled. You may have to restart Google Chrome for the changes to take effect.
you may enable parallel downloads on the desktop version of Chrome as well. In fact, there are several other desktop-exclusiveflags you can tweak to speed up Google Chrome.
4. Turn On Page Preloading
Google Chrome can preload assets and resources for web pages that it thinks you might visit later. This saves time by requesting resources before you actually visit a web page, and when you do, some part of the web page will already be loaded.
Similar to preloading, prefetching caches the pages linked to the web page you’re currently visiting, to deliver better loading times in case you decide to visit them later. This is one of the settings that improves Google Chrome’s performance on Android.
To enable page preloading and prefetching on Chrome, tap the three-dots menu icon and head over toSettings. Navigate toPrivacy and Securityand select thePreload Pagesoption.
Standard preloadingwill be set as the default. Change it toExtended preloadingfor better performance. Finally, relaunch the Google Chrome app to save the changes.
5. Close Other Open Apps
Your smartphone’s limited amount of memory can only handle so many processes at once. If you have multiple apps running simultaneously, you’ll notice a significant drop in your smartphone’s performance.
Resource-intensive apps like games and browsers put more load on your device than other lightweight apps and hog system resources.
To speed up Google Chrome, simply close the apps that you don’t need at the moment. You can do so from theRecent Appsoverview screen. This will free up resources that Chrome can use in case it needs it.
You can also configure the maximum number of processes that will run at any given time. This option is available in theDeveloper Optionssettings asBackground process limit. Enable developer mode on your Android before proceeding.
The Background process limit option will be set to default (Standard limit) after each reboot.
6. Create and Use Homepage Shortcuts
When you want to open a website, you launch Chrome and type in the URL. It’s not a huge problem if you hardly use Google Chrome. But it can quickly become cumbersome if you need to open certain websites multiple times in a day.
A better way is to create homepage shortcuts for such web pages. These shortcuts appear as app icons on your device’s homepage and can be removed or repositioned, as per your preferences.
Tapping an icon on your homepage is quicker than waiting for Google Chrome to open first, then typing the URL and hittingEnter. This can save you a couple of seconds every time you open the website, which might not seem substantial at first, but it’s worth setting up in the long run.
To do so, launch Google Chrome and head over to the website you want to pin to your homepage. Then, tap on the three-dots icon at the top right and selectAdd to Home Screen.
Enter a name for the shortcut and tapAdd. A pop-up will appear asking you to confirm the changes; tapAdd to home screento continue.
Lightning Fast Browsing With Google Chrome
While Google Chrome offers a fast and seamless browsing experience out of the box, its performance heavily depends on the limits of your device’s hardware. A smartphone with less RAM and an old processor will have a tough time running the latest version of Google Chrome, while a flagship phone can easily handle the load irrespective of the number of tabs or apps you have opened.
In addition to multiple tabs support and cross-device synchronization, Google Chrome on Android ships with a plethora of other features, some you didn’t even know existed.
