Tag Archives: slow

Google Chrome being unresponsive or unusually slow? Here’s a fix!

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In recent weeks I’ve been finding my favourite browser, Google Chrome, walking on thin ice. It used to be a seriously speedy browser dancing from page to page… OK, cut the fairy tale. Nonetheless, it was getting increasingly slow performing basic tasks like opening new tabs and launching video playback. It even seemed to cause mouse lag when multiple tabs were open.

Nonetheless, I was fiddling with settings and finally seem to have found a reasonable solution. It seems hardware acceleration has been a relatively new feature for Chrome (available from early 2014-ish). but many seem to be reporting this has led to Chrome becoming slower rather than faster.

Try turning it off using the instructions below and see if it makes a difference.

  1. Type chrome://settings into your address bar. Alternatively, click on the Google Chrome customize button (far top right button in Chrome with the 3 lines, then click Settings)
  2. Scroll to the bottom and click Show advanced settings…
  3. Scroll all the way to the bottom and find the System section. Untick Use hardware acceleration where available. Chrome will tell you it’ll need to restart, so do that by clicking restart (or closing Chrome fully and reloading it)

Try browsing to some sites now or opening some new tabs. I noticed an immediate improvement myself, but let me know if it makes any difference for you.

Do you still use Dialup?

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I have been on broadband for years now and never regretted the change over. 

If you are one of those people who feel broadband still isn’t really for you, here are a few pointers in the direction of upgrading.

You should change to broadband if…

  • You use the internet a lot – If you use a lot of internet, it’s well worth the few pounds a month it costs to have a faster connection. Especially if you are using pay as you go internet – the amount of money your using to pay for the dial up would probably pay for broadband.
  • You want to download a lot – Trying to download large files on dial up usually means leaving the computer on all night. When I had dialup I would get about 4kbps which is just pointless. Also, think about the amount of unnecessary power usage you’re getting through.
  • You want to use the phone at the same time as the internet – Yes, this is probably the biggest upside. I hate it on dialup that you can’t use the phone at the same time.
You can get broadband extremely cheap nowadays so try for yourself and see how long it takes for you to get used to it. I promise you, you wont regret the upgrade.