How to Fix Chrome Running Slow

Pages take seconds to paint, typing lags behind, and switching tabs stalls. The usual assumption is that Chrome itself has gone bad and needs reinstalling, but the slowdown almost always comes from something running inside it: too many tabs, one heavy extension, or an old build. Work through the causes in order below and stop when the speed comes back.

Close the tabs that are eating memory

Every tab and extension is its own process. Open the three-dot menu, More tools, Task manager, click the Memory footprint column to sort, then select the worst offenders and choose End process.

Turn off extensions one at a time

Open the three-dot menu, Extensions, Manage Extensions, and toggle each one off, testing the slow page after each. A faster check: open an Incognito window, where extensions are off by default. If Incognito is quick, an extension is the cause.

Update Chrome

Open the three-dot menu, Help, About Google Chrome. The update downloads on its own; click Relaunch when it appears. Performance and memory fixes ship constantly, so an old build is a real cause of slowness.

Clear the cache

Open the three-dot menu, Delete browsing data, tick Cached images and files, set the range to All time, and confirm. A corrupted or bloated cache makes pages load slower than fetching them fresh.

Switch on the performance settings

Go to Settings, Performance. Turn on Memory Saver so background tabs release their memory, and turn on Preload pages for faster browsing. Both are off or limited on some installs.

Restart the computer

A full restart, not just closing Chrome, clears leaked memory held by the browser and by whatever else is competing with it. Do this before concluding anything is broken.

Hardware acceleration. On some machines it causes stutter rather than preventing it. Go to Settings, System and toggle Use graphics acceleration when available once to test, then relaunch and compare.

If only one site is slow. The site is the problem, not Chrome. Check the same page in another browser before spending more time on browser settings.

Sources. Speed up Google Chrome - Computer - Google Chrome Help, Personalize Chrome performance - Google Chrome Help, Update Google Chrome - Computer - Google Chrome Help.