8 ways to boost web browser performance on Windows

Let’s face it: For many people, web browser performance could well be more important than general PC performance.

Browser makers are wising up to this, too. Google Chrome just introduced new performance controls, while Microsoft Edge has attempted to stand out with its own browser performance options. And every web browser out there has long fought over the title of fastest in the land.

So let’s talk browser performance — and how you can get more of it, specifically when working within Windows. In a world where websites feel like they’re getting heavier and heavier, upgraded browser performance means everything from faster load times and a better all-around browsing experience to more reliable all-around PC performance and longer laptop battery life.

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Windows web browsing boost #1: Cull your extensions

Does your browser feel inexplicably slow? Before you do anything else, I’d recommend pruning any installed browser extensions. Add-ons can be useful, but they can also add some serious overhead to your browsing. They may be always running in the background, or they may run some code on each web page you load.

In Google Chrome, you can click the main three-dot menu icon > Extensions > Manage Extensions to see a list of what’s installed. From there, you can disable or remove them. Other browsers have a similar menu and mechanism, potentially with slightly different placement and phrasing.

You might want to try disabling a few browser extensions first to see if your browser feels faster. If not, you can easily re-activate them by flipping their switches back on in that same area of your browser’s settings.

Windows web browsing boost #2: Put those tabs to sleep (or keep them awake)

Modern web browsers — including Chrome, Edge, and Mozilla Firefox — all have features that put tabs to “sleep.” If you don’t use a tab for a while, your browser will stop it from running. It won’t be able to use resources in the background. When you click back to the tab, your browser will reactivate it.

This saves memory, and it also stops pages in background tabs from using CPU resources. Overall, it will boost your browsing speed.

However, in some cases, it could slow things down. Perhaps you often find that you switch back to a tab and your web browser quickly reloads it. If that’s a problem, you’ll want to make your browser stop putting tabs to sleep — especially if you have a powerful computer with a lot of RAM and a fast CPU. (You can also tell your browser to stop putting specific websites to sleep if it causes a problem with a website.)

To control tab suspending:

• In Google Chrome, click menu > Settings and select “Performance” in the left pane. Look under “Memory Saver” and choose an option: Moderate, Balanced, or Maximum. You can also disable Memory Saver entirely — or add websites you never want Chrome to suspend to the “Always keep these sites active” list there.
• In Microsoft Edge, click menu > Settings and select “System and performance” in the left pane. Use the “Save resources with sleeping tabs,” “Put inactive tabs to sleep after the specified amount of time,” and “Never put these sites to sleep” options to control this behavior.
• In Mozilla Firefox, this feature is always activated — unless you dig deep into Firefox’s settings to turn off tab unloading.

Windows web browsing boost #3: Preload more pages

Your web browser of choice can “preload” some pages. In other words, it might load them in the background if it thinks you’ll visit them. If you do, the page loads very quickly — because by the time you’re looking at it, it’s already loaded in the background and ready to go!

Most browsers offer different preloading options, some of which are more aggressive than others. And preloading has some potential privacy implications, as your browser might load links you wouldn’t have clicked. But, for maximum speed, you’ll probably want the most aggressive preloading options available.

To control preloading:

• In Google Chrome, click menu > Settings and select “Performance” in the left pane. Scroll down to the “Preload pages” option. For maximum speed, ensure “Preload pages” is active and that it’s set to “Extended preloading.”
• In Microsoft Edge, click menu > Settings and select “Cookies and site permissions” in the left pane. Click “Manage and delete cookies and site data,” and ensure “Preload pages for faster browsing and searching” is activated.
• In Mozilla Firefox, prefetching is always active — unless you’ve gone out of your way to dig into about:config and disable it.

Windows web browsing boost #4: Check your browser’s task manager

Want to see what’s actually using CPU and memory? Modern Chromium-based web browsers — including Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc Browser, and more — have task managers that will show you. (Firefox has something similar, too.)

In a Chromium-based browser, just right-click an empty spot on the tab bar and select “Task Manager” or press Shift+Esc to open it.

You will see a list of processes — including open web pages, browser extensions, and browser components — along with how much CPU and memory they’re using. If your web browser is mysteriously slow, this is a good place to check: You might spot an open web page that’s dragging everything down, and you can close it from here. You can also click the “CPU” heading to sort processes by CPU and see the most CPU-hungry items at the top of the list.

In Firefox, you can access something similar by plugging about:processes into Firefox’s address bar and pressing Enter. (The Shift+Esc shortcut will work, too!)

Windows web browsing boost #5: Clear your browser cache (or stop clearing it)

Ah, the browser cache. As you browse, your web browser remembers the pages you visit and the things you type in a history, it stores images and other bits of downloaded pages in a cache, and it keeps cookies with information from websites — like your sign-in status.

Many people frequently clear this browser cache. If your browser is slow, you can try clearing browsing data. In fact, Microsoft’s official Edge browser documentation says “Clearing your browser data on a regular basis will improve the performance of your browser” — and who am I to argue with Microsoft? Surely, it understands how its own browser works.

Clearing that data is worth a shot. But, conversely, if you’re clearing your browsing data too regularly, you might want to stop doing that. The browser cache is there to speed things up: Your browser can pick images and other bits of web pages out of its cache rather than redownloading them, which improves load times when you revisit a page.

You’ll find options for clearing browsing data in your browser’s menu, but you can also just press Ctrl+Shift+Delete to quickly open the browser-history-clearing tool.

Windows web browsing boost #6: Scan for malware

We have to talk about malware for a minute. Whenever a PC is running mysteriously slow, malware is always one of the first things you should check for.

Be sure to run a scan with your installed antivirus tool of choice if you’re concerned about questionable performance drops. If you haven’t installed anything special, your PC is using Microsoft’s Windows Defender antivirus. You could also get a second opinion with a different antivirus tool, if you’re not too confident in your current security solution. (Our friends over at PCWorld have a list of highly recommended free antivirus tools.)

Windows web browsing boost #7: Switch up your ad-blocker

When it comes to ad-blockers, one thing people don’t often talk about is the fact that such systems can both speed up and slow down your browsing. The speed-up part is obvious: By refusing to load advertising resources on web pages, ad-blocking plugins reduce download size and produce a lighter page that opens more quickly.

But there’s also a slow-down factor: Ad-blockers might also run extra code on the pages you visit, increasing memory use and making them take longer to load.

Different ad-blockers will have different effects on performance. There’s been a lot of controversy about Google Chrome’s switch to Manifest V3 and how it stops the popular “classic” uBlock Origin ad-blocker from functioning. But here’s the thing: While the new way Chrome blocks ads with Manifest V3 is less powerful, it’s also faster. So if you happen to be using uBlock Origin and install the new uBlock Origin Lite, you could see improved page load speeds.

That’s because those new Manifest V3-compatible ad-blocker extensions work by providing a list of resources they want to block. The Chrome browser engine then blocks those resources. That means the ad-blocking browser extension itself doesn’t have to get involved and run a bunch of code on the pages you access.

If you want a speed boost, it’s something worth chewing over. If you’re not yet using any ad-blocker, consider installing one. If you are using an ad-blocker, consider switching — for example, to something like uBlock Origin Lite.

Just bear in mind that you might occasionally break a page; you might need to turn it off for a page if you run into issues. 

Windows web browsing boost #8: Try a fresh browser profile

If a device isn’t working properly, factory-resetting it is a good tip. You might reset a Windows PC to its default settings or factory-reset an Android phone to get it to a nice fresh state if you can’t pin down a performance problem. The same is true for browsers.

To be clear: I’m not recommending you run out and factory-reset your PC! But popular browsers have built-in “fresh start” tools that will clean up your browser profile and its settings, wiping away any configuration changes, disabling extensions, and erasing cached files to give you a like-new browser. It’s worth a shot.

Here’s how to do it:

• In Google Chrome, click menu > Settings and select “Reset Settings” in the left pane. Use the “Restore settings to their original defaults” option.
• In Microsoft Edge, click menu > Settings and select “Reset Settings” in the left pane. Click the “Restore settings to their default values” option.
• In Mozilla Firefox, click menu > Help > Troubleshoot Mode. You can then click “Refresh Firefox” in the dialog box that opens.

It’s a good way to start over. And hey — if you’re experiencing any kind of PC performance issue, browser-related or otherwise, the old standby advice is always good: Try turning it off and on again.

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