Google Chrome RAM Saver

[nayman898]

Alright, so this was sparked by the WAN show when they were talking about how many tabs they have open in chrome. (side-note, It may have been an older WAN show, I don't remember at this point) They were talking about the lack of RAM that they have while they're using chrome, and I had been having the same issue. I need a lot open for work, and I need to hop back and forth between them. BUT I have a small, non-upgrade-able (except M.2 SSD) Samsung Notebook 9 Pro 13" with 8GB of RAM, so having 10 chrome tabs AND visual studio open, really fills that up quickly. As a result, I spent some time about a month back trying to find a way to Save my RAM while still having those pages "open". The resolution I came across was a Chrome plugin called "The Great Suspender" (link) and it essentially "shuts down" a tab after inactivity. This makes my life with limited RAM so much better. I can have all 10 tabs open, with only 2 or 3 active, but switch to an inactive and in seconds its ready to go.

I do not have any affiliation with the company who created this software, and I am not making anything off this post. I just find this software Very helpful, and the WAN show reference of running out of RAM made me think of sharing this.

[voiha]

Isn't this already a thing in Google Chrome Beta (not sure if it's in stable yet *I could be wrong*). Filling your RAM is not a bad thing as long as it's not over 80% it causes slowdowns. More on that, you can look at how RAM(Random access memory) Works and you'll get it.

 

How much does Chrome eats of your RAM, I use constantly 2 instance of Chrome (Beta and Stable) with around 20-30 tabs opened and that's my RAM usage (I have 16GB RAM) ? 

Maybe something else is going on with your system ?

 

[nayman898]

In my scenario, I also run Visual Studio, and run close to 90% usage when an app is running through it. That is my primary reasoning. I will take some before and after screen shots with the plugin installed. On my desktop at home, I never have any issues.

[Ross Siggers]

I think it was literally last weeks WAN show, I remember them talking about the same thing.

[voiha]

7 minutes ago, nayman898 said:

In my scenario, I also run Visual Studio, and run close to 90% usage when an app is running through it. That is my primary reasoning. I will take some before and after screen shots with the plugin installed. On my desktop at home, I never have any issues.

oh, but it depends, it will indicate that there is a problem if the 2 systems are with the same components, which I assume it's not the case. It would be good to tell us what are the builds. edit - I see that your work pc is a notebook

oh and also, quote or @ me when replying, if you just comment on your thread I won't be notified and I may not see what you typed

[nayman898]

@voiha
My home PC build:

Motherboard: ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 AM3+
CPU: AMD FX-9590 5.1GHz OC Liquid Cooled
RAM: 16GB DDR3 (not sure on speed)

Graphics: AMD RX580 8GB OC (1450MHz)

Drives: 1 Intel 730 120GB (boot) 1 PNY 240GB, 1 SanDisk 500GB, 1 2TB Western Digital Blue

My Laptop (work pc):

CPU: i7-7500u
RAM 8GB DDR4
SSD: Samsung 250GB (not EVO series, not really sure what it is, its OEM)

 

The desktop will be rebuilt and refined soon, and I will be consolidating the SSD's to same brands for RAID

 

But the outcome of the tests are attached. The top is with all the chrome tabs open, with VS running its app (second instance of chrome)  there were 29 tabs in this instance. The bottom is with "The Great Suspender" active on all but this tab

[nayman898]

And in this case, I wasn't active on my app, so it was using minimal resources, when I am active on the webpage, it usually runs around 2GB (only if Chrome isn't hogging it all) otherwise the app's performance takes a drastic hit

[nayman898]

15 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

I think it was literally last weeks WAN show, I remember them talking about the same thing.

I thought so, but I couldn't remember and didn't want to be wrong

[voiha]

Oh wow that's a bummer, I guess the extension really works then. 

So I actually found out that when I put the pc to sleep the tabs goes in some kind of innactive state and they are re-opened only when I click them, that's why I was seeing low RAM usage, now the story is way different when I re-opened all of them. 

 

I guess that's how Google Chrome works : /

Sorry that I couldn't help you with something else

 

 

 

[nayman898]

I was also just trying to get this software out there. If Linus is experiencing the issue, (well, of course he really isn't with the amount of RAM he has) but its still a very viable option that works really well. A solution to the RAM whore that Google chrome has become

[Guest]

A chromebook with 4 gigs of ram runs just fine with 50 tabs or something like that. Battery life might drain fast but it definitely doesn't lag much.

[nayman898]

2 minutes ago, hiitswilliam said:

A chromebook with 4 gigs of ram runs just fine with 50 tabs or something like that. Battery life might drain fast but it definitely doesn't lag much.

On Windows you're bound to be running more than just chrome, which is why this is helpful. I in particular usually run Visual Studio Webapps that are under development at the same time, and if its under use, then it uses a significant amount of RAM. And if Chrome is using an equally significant amount of RAM, I quickly run out. And unfortunately with my work laptop, I cannot upgrade the RAM

[xriqn]

9 minutes ago, hiitswilliam said:

A chromebook with 4 gigs of ram runs just fine with 50 tabs or something like that. Battery life might drain fast but it definitely doesn't lag much.

 

4 minutes ago, nayman898 said:

On Windows you're bound to be running more than just chrome, which is why this is helpful. I in particular usually run Visual Studio Webapps that are under development at the same time, and if its under use, then it uses a significant amount of RAM. And if Chrome is using an equally significant amount of RAM, I quickly run out. And unfortunately with my work laptop, I cannot upgrade the RAM

My old inspiron 530 could run masses of chrome tabs easily and that old heap only had 4GB DDR2.

[nayman898]

13 minutes ago, xriqn said:

 

My old inspiron 530 could run masses of chrome tabs easily and that old heap only had 4GB DDR2.

And it still probably could, at the cost of performance. Google Chrome uses more RAM nowadays that it ever had in the past. Even if it is the same website. When Google made the change, they announced the reasoning was for protection against the Spectre vulnerability and quoted an estimate 13% increase in RAM usage. I also am probably running more intensive tasks that your old Inspiron 530 couldn't handle in addition to Chrome being open

[xriqn]

Just now, nayman898 said:

And it still probably could, at the cost of performance. Google Chrome uses more RAM nowadays that it ever had in the past. Even if it is the same website. When Google made the change, they announced the reasoning was for protection against the Spectre vulnerability

Last chrome version I ran on it was like 67 or something. I'm sure that had the spectre patch on it, idk.

[nayman898]

9 minutes ago, xriqn said:

Last chrome version I ran on it was like 67 or something. I'm sure that had the spectre patch on it, idk.

Chrome 67 was the version that implemented the Spectre patch. It has come further since. But the point wasn't to argue if a PC could or couldn't handle Chrome, its that Chrome is a RAM hoarder and this is a solution that has worked well for me, and could work well for others.

[WkdPaul]

* threads merged *

[nayman898]

Thank you