TECH

Google Chrome may soon share how much memory each tab is hogging

We often speak of Chrome's memory usage with a negative connotation, although Google's browser is one of the best options out there. With Chrome 108, Google began taking decisive steps to shed that image, rolling out new features like Memory Saver to help reduce RAM usage and extend battery life. Now, it looks like Chrome wants to be more direct about exactly what is hogging all your memory.

The way Memory Saver works now, it tells you how much memory was freed when Chrome automatically snoozed a tab on your computer. The feature is enabled by default in Chrome 110 and you may have already seen it in action. Chrome expert and Android Police reader Leopeva64 on Twitter found a new confirmation from Chromium Gerrit suggesting that the browser may soon show specific memory usage for each open tab when you hover your cursor over it.

You can always open Chrome's built-in task manager utility from the three-dot menu -> More Tools -> Task Manager, or by pressing Shift + Esc to view RAM usage statistics by tab. The interface also shows the network and CPU usage for all tabs, but hovering the cursor over the tab is much more convenient. There will still be specific use cases for the task manager, but if you're struggling with multiple tabs on a tired Chromebook, you don't have to rely on guesswork when deciding which tabs to close.

Notes on Gerrit still suggest the feature is skin deep, so it might be a while before we see it, even in Chrome Beta. If you're not using one of the best Chromebooks or a powerful computer, you can let Memory saver do all the legwork in the background after you upgrade to Chrome 110. Chrome 111 was just released on the stable channel on March 1st, so we likely won't hear more about this feature until the beta release of Chrome 112, slated for March 9th. The task manager is always around if you want tab-specific stats, until then.

Source: Android Police