Google Chrome Slow? Advanced Guide to Speed Up Chrome

It’s better if you’re here after visiting the Beginner’s Guide to Speed Up Chrome as those are the things which would give you the maximum impact (better page load speeds) and efficiency to Chrome.

Time to go advanced!

This article is geared towards some of the advanced tweaks that can be played upon Chrome to get a better browsing experience and performance.

#1 - Experimental Canvas Features

Experimental Canvas Features enables the use of opaque canvases which would reduce page load times, performance and speed up Chrome.

To enable Experimental Canvas Features:

• Type “chrome://flags/#enable-experimental-canvas-features” in the address bar of Chrome -> Enable it.

#2 - Display List 2D Canvas

Display List 2D Canvas display lists to record 2D canvas commands. This allows 2D canvas rasterization to be performed on separate thread. This would cause simultaneous parallel processing and as a result process would finish faster and eventually speed up Chrome.

To enable Display List 2D Canvas:

• Type “chrome://flags/#enable-display-list-2d-canvas” in the address bar of Chrome -> Enable it.

#3 - Fast Tab/Window Close

Fast tab/window closing runs a tab’s onunload js handler independently of the GUI. This would result in super-fast tab and window closings which would feel like speeding up Chrome.

To enable Fast tab/window closing:

• Type “chrome://flags/#enable-fast-unload” in the address bar of Chrome -> Enable it.

#4 - Experimental QUIC Protocol

Activates an experimental QUIC protocol support for Chrome to boost up page loads and speed up Chrome.

To enable experimental QUIC protocol:

• Type “chrome://flags/#enable-quic” in the address bar of Chrome -> Enable it.

#5 - Simple Cache for HTTP

The Simple Cache for HTTP is a new cache. It relies on the filesystem for disk space allocation. By enabling it, you’ll allow caching of webpages to load faster the next time you open it. Speedy page loads!

To enable Simple Cache for HTTP:

• Type “chrome://flags/#enable-simple-cache-backend” in the address bar of Chrome -> Enable it.

#6 - TCP Fast Open

Enable the option to send extra authentication information in the initial SYN packet for a previously connected client, allowing faster data send start.

This option isn’t available on Windows OS.

To enable TCP Fast Open:

• Type “chrome://flags/#enable-tcp-fast-open” in the address bar of Chrome -> Enable it.

#7 - Raster Threads

Raster Threads does the work of rendering images in Chrome. The number of raster threads directly co-relates to the number of images getting rendered at the same time, and thus increasing it would speed up Chrome.

To change the number of Raster Threads:

• Type “chrome://flags/#num-raster-threads” in the address bar of Chrome -> Change the value to 4.

Some Unstable Features You Might Want to Try

#1 - Maximum Tiles for Interest Area

This option forces Chrome to use the highest possible amount of PC resources to work as fast as possible.

If you’ve a PC with pretty-good config, then you’re fine with turning on this option, else it can cause very high RAM utilization and can almost kill your other running apps.

To change the Maximum Tiles for Interest Area:

• Type “chrome://flags/#max-tiles-for-interest-area” in the address bar of Chrome -> Change the value to 512 or a suitable number that works for you.

#2 - Zero-Copy Rasterizer

If enabled, raster threads write directly to GPU memory associated with tiles. So, if you have less dedicated graphics memory or don’t have any at all, you should stay away from this option as it may sometimes crash the browser.

To enable Zero-Copy Rasterizer:

• Type “chrome://flags/#enable-zero-copy” in the address bar of Chrome -> Enable it.

Conclusion

Chrome Flags are always a fun to experiment with. But, Beware! changing the wrong option might even crash down your browser or your PC as well!

Some of the Chrome Experimental features keep on changing due to which it’s not recommended to turn those options on. All the one’s mentioned here are pretty stable and have been found in all the versions of Chrome from a long time. Hence, you are safe to experiment with those features.

How well did these experimental features worked in your case? Do you know any other advanced method to speed up Chrome? Let us know in the comments below.