I’m not going to lie. I always have more than enough tabs open.
This has never been much of a problem for me, using Google Chrome since release, and I used Opera sporadically. Google Chrome had served me well, for some time, with its original aim of simply being the fastest, nicest, easiest-to-use browser out there going well. Until Chrome began to get hungry.
For some time now, Chrome has grown a reputation for being a heavy consumer of RAM. It is no longer considered fastest browser, and a number of other browsers are arguably just as fast, if not, faster. Firefox is not the slow browser is gained its reputation as, Opera is arguably more user-friendly and as chrome now, and there are many other good browsers out there.
But the reason I come to writing this, is because I have met a point of great frustration. This happened.
Last week, my colleague Owen wrote a compelling piece on why he’s breaking up with Chrome, but while I understood his reasons, I wasn’t quite ready to split. That’s why I was delighted to discover The Great Suspender.
A quote from this article.
“The Great Suspender” is not some magical fairy feature within chrome which makes it go from RAM monster to fast, efficient browser. It is this:
The Chrome extension solves one of the biggest complaints about the browser – that it gobbles up memory, forcing your machine to slow to a crawl and sending the fans into overdrive.
It does that in a really simple way: Suspending tabs that you’re not using until you return to them and reactivate the process.
Another quote from this article.
Thats right.
An extension that makes Chrome faster. *Head hits desk*
I personally find this a tad ridiculous - if you are in need of a faster bowser, get a faster browser, not an extension. This is not to say the extension is bad, but it is a great, great shame that the state of Chrome now ends up resulting in this. But, having said that, hopefully progress will be made, at some point soon.
So, solutions for this problem?
- The Great Suspender
- A different browser
- Fewer tabs
- I don’t manage it.
- Also see this.
- Wait for the fruits of this project by Opera and Google
- This project aims to reduce Chromium’s memory consumption, and introducing tab hibernation.
- This project will eventually result in improvements in Chromium, Opera, and Google Chrome.
Or you could even go for Opera 12. Opera 12 was very, very fast, had tab hibernation, low RAM requirements, and could handle literally hundreds of tabs with no trouble. This might not neccesarily be the most secure, but apparently isn’t affected by heartbleed.
I am a regular user of Opera, and occasionally Opera 12.
Also posted on Medium.