Chrome's one-click Fix button will unload resource hungry tabs to boost performance

Finding Chrome tabs using more resources, got easier

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Performance issue alert with fix button

Google continues to work on improving Chrome’s performance. We previously reported on Memory Saver to offer three modes to maximize memory savings. In addition to that, Chrome will show performance issue alerts when certain tabs use more CPU.

Now, Google is taking a step further by allowing you to take action on resource-intensive tabs by turning them inactive on demand to free up more resources. Here’s how you can experience and use the new “Performance Issue Alert” in Chrome Canary right now to make browser more responsive and faster.

Google is wary of Chrome performance issues or it wants to ditch the “memory hog” tag, the company is working on identifying tabs that use more resources (similar to how it already shows each tab’s memory usage in a hover card) and triggering a notification for the user to click a “Fix” button.

This is a great feature, but the notification will only appear when tabs start using a certain CPU threshold. Since Google may not be entirely confident in the natural trigger, they’re providing another way to force an alert. Windows Report, which spotted the bug and flag first, has verified the feature has worked absolutely fine.

How to trigger “Performance issue Alert” in Chrome right now

  1. Visit chrome://flags.
  2. Find and enable “performance intervention UI” and “Enable Performance intervention demo mode”.
  3. Restart Chrome.
  4. Visit chrome://settings > Performance > General and ensure “Performance Issue Alert” Setting is enabled.
  5. Visit chrome://discards.
  6. Click “Trigger performance CPU intervention.”
Enable Performance intervention Demo mode flag. Image Credit: Windows Report
Performance intervention UI flag

A notification will appear on the right side of the toolbar, stating

“Performance issue alert. These tabs are using extra resources. To improve your performance, let Chrome make them inactive” with “Fix Now” and “Dismiss” buttons.

Performance issue alert triggered in chrome discards page. Image Credit: Windows Report

When you click the “Fix Now” button, all resource-hogging tabs will be immediately unloaded. You can verify this fix by checking their status under “Loading Status” on chrome://discards, where they should be listed as “Unloaded.”

Performance Intervention Demo mode flag, when enabled:

” CPU thresholds and rate limiting will be ignored so performance intervention UI may be easily triggered through natural browser usage or force triggered in chrome://discards. All suggested actionable tabs will meet the normal discard criteria except for needing to stay in the background for a set minimum time”, flag description reads.

This feature offers a one-click solution to improve Chrome’s performance. Notably, Google is also working on boosting background tab performance, fixing out-of-memory errors caused by the process-per-site feature, and proactively developing a feature to show notifications about Chrome tips and features on Windows.

That’s not all, Chrome is making users aware about Dangerous download warning with a new interstitial.

More about the topics: Chrome