And what a Drag it is\u2026<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n We get plenty of requests for help from people whose computers start freezing up after they\u2019ve been using them for a while. And there are a lot of reasons why this happens including too many programs starting with Windows.<\/span><\/p>\n But another reason that isn\u2019t often mentioned is Web browsers loaded with extensions or add-ons and\/or a browser with dozens of open tabs. Extensions, add-ons, and open browser tabs use a lot of resources. However, if you look in Windows Task Manager you won\u2019t see what extension, add-on, or tab is using up the resources, most of the time you\u2019ll just see the name of the browser as the process name. That\u2019s why sometimes you\u2019ll open Task Manager and see a lot of Chrome processes running\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n You might think by looking at the screenshot above that I have a bunch of Chrome tabs open. Well, I do have 7or 8 open, but most of them are extensions in Chrome.<\/span><\/p>\n It works the same with Firefox or Microsoft Edge. Every tab, every add-on, every extension runs in its own process. And each process uses up resources.<\/span><\/p>\n If your computer has a lot of RAM (8 GB or more), you can get away with more extensions and open tabs than those who have less RAM. So, if your PC has only 4 GB of RAM and your browser is loaded up with extensions and you have a lot of tabs open, you\u2019ll notice that the longer computer runs, the slower it gets and it may even become unresponsive.\u00a0 But most of us would never think that the browser may be the culprit.<\/span><\/p>\n Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and other popular browsers have browser task managers that you can open and see how much of your computer\u2019s resources are being drained by the browser, the installed extensions\/add-ons, and the open tabs. You\u2019ll be surprised and how much memory (RAM) some extensions use.<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at a few examples.<\/span><\/p>\n Chrome Task Manager<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n To open Chrome\u2019s Task Manager, click on the settings icon \u2013 the 3 vertical dots- at the top right. Click on \u201cMore tools\u201d in the dropdown menu, then click \u201cTask Manager\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n You\u2019ll see how much of your resources are being used by Chrome, the installed extensions, and open tabs.<\/span><\/p>\n Firefox Task Manager<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n To open the browser Task Manager is Firefox, click on the Firefox settings icon (3 horizontal lines) in the top right. In the drop-down menu click on \u201cMore\u201d then \u201cTask Manager\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Microsoft Edge Task Manager<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n And last, but not least, Microsoft Edge. To open the browser Task Manager in Microsoft Edge, right-click the Edge title bar and select \u201cbrowser Task Manager\u201d from the menu. Or, with Edge open, use the keyboard shortcut SHIFT+ESC.<\/span><\/p>\n Is your computer slowing down or becoming unresponsive?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n If your computer slows down and\/or freezes after you\u2019ve been using it for a while, it may be worth your while to look at your browser\u2019s Task Manager to see how much of your computer\u2019s resources are being consumed by the browser add-ons, extensions, and open tabs. <\/span><\/p>\n You can close some of the open tabs to recover some memory (RAM), but most of the time the extensions and\/or add-ons continue to run in the background. If you find some of your extensions using a lot of memory, it may be time to start removing some of the extensions you really don’t need.<\/span><\/p>\n Keep in mind, many other things can cause your computer to become slow and\/or unresponsive. But open tabs and browser extensions can cause a drag on your computer\u2019s resources, and if you don\u2019t have a lot of resources to begin, it may cause your computer to slow down and even become unresponsive\u2026 and what a drag that is, eh?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Too Many Browser Extensions Can Slow Your Computer And what a Drag it is\u2026 We get plenty of requests for help from people whose computers start freezing up after they\u2019ve been using them for a while. And there are a lot of reasons why this happens including too many programs starting with Windows. But another\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1462,2574,2659,2660],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21948"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21949,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21948\/revisions\/21949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Cloudeight](\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2020\/chromedrag0.png\")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Cloudeight](\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2020\/chromedrag.png\")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Cloudeight](\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2020\/firefoxdrag1.png\")
<\/span>
\nAbove: The Firefox browser Task Manager showing the number of resources used by each open tab and extension.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Cloudeight](\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2020\/edgedrag.png\")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Cloudeight](\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2020\/edgedrag1.png\")
<\/span>
\nAbove: You can see how much of your computer\u2019s resources are being used by open tabs and extensions in Microsoft Edge.<\/span><\/p>\n