1
00:00:00,399 --> 00:00:06,680
man Google Chrome kind of sucks now right I remember when everyone was

2
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:13,160
screaming stop using Internet Explorer Chrome is so much faster was that all a

3
00:00:09,639 --> 00:00:15,519
lie no actually Chrome was a revolution

4
00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:19,920
it was lightweight fast as I'll get out and it brought great features like tab

5
00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:24,400
sandboxing so that if one of your tabs froze your entire browser didn't have to

6
00:00:21,840 --> 00:00:30,519
crash like the old days so what changed then to turn Chrome into this bloated

7
00:00:26,480 --> 00:00:33,680
RAM devouring Behemoth maybe it was

8
00:00:30,519 --> 00:00:35,399
you me I mean I don't have the best

9
00:00:33,680 --> 00:00:39,320
browsing habits I leave way too many tabs open but Chrome has a way of

10
00:00:37,559 --> 00:00:43,760
dealing with that using Dynamic caching for the tabs I'm not using sure but is

11
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:47,239
Google the one who installed all those extensions I mean I don't have that many

12
00:00:45,719 --> 00:00:52,480
I just have zoto for tracking my research language

13
00:00:49,160 --> 00:00:54,600
tool tele party and an ad locker could

14
00:00:52,480 --> 00:00:59,519
it be that his insatable thirst for extra functionality is bogging down his

15
00:00:56,520 --> 00:01:03,559
browser as it turns out yes I need to make some Chang

16
00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:08,119
but not every extension is made equal while some had no effect on browser

17
00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:13,680
performance others like last pass reduced performance by as much as 12% an

18
00:01:11,320 --> 00:01:18,680
effect that Stacks across your library of resource sucking add-ons with 2third

19
00:01:17,119 --> 00:01:23,400
of people using Chrome as a default browser it's clear that we need to see

20
00:01:20,960 --> 00:01:28,439
just how bad this situation is explore what can be done to fix it and talk

21
00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:33,159
about Google's solution including why it might be a bad one so quickly now to the

22
00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:39,799
lab wait this isn't the lab this is the

23
00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:41,479
segue to our sponsor ODU if you own a

24
00:01:39,799 --> 00:01:45,479
business you'll know what I mean when I say you probably have too many apps

25
00:01:43,320 --> 00:01:49,360
running at the same time with odu's all-in-one business software you can

26
00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:53,759
combine all of those into a single unified platform so click the link in

27
00:01:51,439 --> 00:01:57,200
the description to learn more our Labs team has a fair bit of experience under

28
00:01:55,600 --> 00:02:02,560
their belt testing video games and productivity apps but this is one of our

29
00:01:59,240 --> 00:02:04,280
first for into browser performance and

30
00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:09,840
how exactly you measure browser performance is a big question primarily

31
00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:15,160
because browsers are big programs chromium the open source framework that

32
00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:17,200
Chrome is based on is 31 million lines

33
00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:21,480
of code that is almost as much as the Linux kernel the core of Linux based

34
00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:26,360
operating systems and it's close to the estimated count for older complete

35
00:02:23,519 --> 00:02:30,640
operating systems like Windows XP which Probably sounds ludicrous right until

36
00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:35,760
you consider that I mean outside of games how many programs do you run that

37
00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:39,840
aren't in your browser and of those ones how many of them are just web apps that

38
00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:43,280
could run in your browser so the thing is modern browsers need to be able to

39
00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:47,920
support pretty much everything from 28-year-old geoc cities pages to

40
00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:50,480
full-blown Photoshop clones so coming back to the question of how to measure

41
00:02:49,640 --> 00:02:56,599
their performance it's challenging because browsers do a lot of different things

42
00:02:54,720 --> 00:03:00,760
but we're going to do our best starting with a machine that is based on the most

43
00:02:58,400 --> 00:03:05,879
common specifications in a recent steam Hardware survey to look at memory use we

44
00:03:03,799 --> 00:03:11,519
opened up Chrome to a set of common web pages and on a clean system measured our

45
00:03:08,519 --> 00:03:13,799
idle RAM usage at around 1.1 GB which

46
00:03:11,519 --> 00:03:18,920
increased to 1.25 when we were streaming 4K video even on a system with just 8

47
00:03:16,720 --> 00:03:22,879
gigs of RAM that's not a problematic amount of usage and it's important to

48
00:03:20,799 --> 00:03:28,159
note that even if it was higher that isn't necessarily A Bad Thing programs

49
00:03:25,879 --> 00:03:32,879
that need to access information quickly will benefit from using up more R and as

50
00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:38,120
long as they give it up in the event that your Os or another program needs it

51
00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:42,640
it's not really a problem but what happens when we add extensions well as

52
00:03:40,760 --> 00:03:47,000
it turns out it depends on the type our password manager last pass and our

53
00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:52,040
thirdparty spell checker grammarly both used considerably more RAM than say

54
00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:56,879
coupon code collector honey one extension insert usual disclaimer about

55
00:03:54,560 --> 00:04:01,120
the impact on creators actually reduced our overall RAM usage and that was

56
00:03:58,840 --> 00:04:05,680
ublock origin which is clearly effectively blocking ads and trackers

57
00:04:02,959 --> 00:04:10,040
from sapping our system resources though funnily enough the more popular ad block

58
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:13,280
extension didn't have the same effect which kind of makes us question its

59
00:04:11,519 --> 00:04:17,799
Effectiveness especially when they advertise that their extension saves

60
00:04:15,199 --> 00:04:23,400
memory overall with 10 of the most popular extensions we observed a nearly

61
00:04:19,840 --> 00:04:25,240
50% increase in RAM usage with half a

62
00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:30,759
dozen tabs open that's not that big of a deal but as your tab addiction grows so

63
00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:36,880
unfortunately does your Problem by the time we reached 48 tabs we were looking

64
00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:38,720
at a whole 2 GB of extra RAM usage for

65
00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:43,160
what is functionally the same user experience I mean you're not looking at

66
00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:46,080
all those Windows at once are you I mean of course if you have ample system

67
00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:51,680
memory you're probably not going to notice the difference anyway will you

68
00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:53,800
actually you might to gauge performance

69
00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:58,560
of our browsers we ran several benchmarks that aim to test the many

70
00:04:55,759 --> 00:05:02,360
features of the web in motion Mark which measures Graphics per performance in our

71
00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:06,440
browser most of our extensions caused virtually no change in performance

72
00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:10,960
except this is kind of a funny one our ad blockers you see ad blockers need to

73
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:14,520
interact with the rendering pipeline in order to hide ads without turning your

74
00:05:12,759 --> 00:05:19,199
web pages into a completely fragmented mess and that appears to have resulted

75
00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:23,280
in a reduction in in browser rendering performance now in the real world this

76
00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:27,400
slowdown is going to be masked by other speed benefits but we thought it was an

77
00:05:25,199 --> 00:05:30,960
interesting observation nonetheless moving on to speedometer a benchmark

78
00:05:29,280 --> 00:05:35,280
that's f focused on simulating user experiences like working with a to-do

79
00:05:33,199 --> 00:05:40,039
list editing Rich Text rendering charts and reading news sites we found a

80
00:05:37,280 --> 00:05:44,600
totally different story here it's last pass causing a big slowdown and our best

81
00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:49,680
guess is that this is due to last pass trying to scan every text field for

82
00:05:46,919 --> 00:05:52,919
potential autofill opportunities in jet stream 2 a benchmark that's focused on

83
00:05:51,840 --> 00:05:57,479
smooth operation we found that ad block and

84
00:05:55,080 --> 00:06:03,080
grammarly did a lot of damage but then last pass was relatively benign and then

85
00:05:59,840 --> 00:06:05,080
in web expert 4.0 we measured just 3%

86
00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:09,240
reduced performance with all of our extensions enabled at once so sometimes

87
00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:15,120
your extensions matter sometimes they don't and sometimes different ones will

88
00:06:11,919 --> 00:06:17,479
or won't the results just don't really

89
00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:21,560
seem to add up to a clear picture but hey maybe the problem is we're looking

90
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:26,479
too closely if we zoom out and look at the overall a clear Trend develops

91
00:06:24,599 --> 00:06:31,000
especially when we configure our browser like a regular person would and we have

92
00:06:28,520 --> 00:06:34,160
multiple extensions running concurrently with everything enabled we lose

93
00:06:32,639 --> 00:06:39,800
something like a quarter of our performance in the Chrome web browser if

94
00:06:36,280 --> 00:06:41,280
you're a major Surfer 25% that's the

95
00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:45,319
kind of difference that you could really notice in day-to-day use I mean think of

96
00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:49,919
all the extra LTT behind the scenes that you could watch on lm. g/ flat plane

97
00:06:47,479 --> 00:06:55,199
with all that extra time so what do we do about this well some extensions are

98
00:06:53,039 --> 00:06:58,720
always consuming some level of system resources and you can track this

99
00:06:56,720 --> 00:07:02,520
Yourself by pressing shift escape to open the Chrome tab task manager at the

100
00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:06,680
bottom of your list will be your extensions and writing this right now

101
00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:11,479
I'm noticing some of my extensions being needlessly active page downloader single

102
00:07:09,520 --> 00:07:15,599
file why is that open I'm not downloading anything but then the PDF

103
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:18,960
editing extension that I'm using seems to respect the fact that I don't always

104
00:07:17,080 --> 00:07:23,160
need it running and it's not consuming anything now's a perfect time then to go

105
00:07:21,520 --> 00:07:27,080
through and call some of your more inconsiderate extensions especially if

106
00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:30,919
you aren't using them that much anymore all it'll cost you is a few seconds to

107
00:07:28,879 --> 00:07:34,560
click that little puzzle block and here's a good rule of thumb if you don't

108
00:07:32,639 --> 00:07:39,240
remember the last time you used it or what it's for just get rid of it you can

109
00:07:36,759 --> 00:07:43,479
always reinstall it later if you have lots of RAM and good tab management

110
00:07:41,319 --> 00:07:47,599
turning off the memory saving feature in Chrome will speed things up as well as

111
00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:51,879
Chrome will spend less time reloading Pages preloading Pages can also speed

112
00:07:50,159 --> 00:07:56,759
things up but if you're someone who uses an ad blocker or a privacy extension

113
00:07:54,039 --> 00:07:59,879
pre-loading isn't really an option speaking of privacy this is unrelated to

114
00:07:58,479 --> 00:08:03,520
your extensions but what you're in the menu why not stop by the add privacy

115
00:08:01,919 --> 00:08:07,159
section and turn all of that tracking off we can't really give you an after

116
00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:10,560
result for the impact of all the changes you just made I mean your mileage may

117
00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:14,360
vary depending on what you removed or didn't and your overall web browsing

118
00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:17,680
habits but from what we've seen anecdotally it is very possible that

119
00:08:16,440 --> 00:08:21,639
you'll notice a difference just not in startup times

120
00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:27,560
this was a really interesting part of our test that we're tacking on the end here we found that with a reasonable

121
00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:31,039
extension load out the application takes about the same amount of time to Launch

122
00:08:29,479 --> 00:08:35,440
regardless of what you do or don't have active then again I guess who cares

123
00:08:34,120 --> 00:08:40,279
anyway because when's the last time you closed Chrome I see that update button

124
00:08:38,680 --> 00:08:45,560
the last thing that you can do is to uninstall chrome and I'm only kind of

125
00:08:43,599 --> 00:08:49,480
joking right now the roll out of Google's manifest V3 is set to

126
00:08:47,720 --> 00:08:54,240
dramatically change the capabilities of chromium extensions which by the way

127
00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:58,040
also affect Microsoft Edge now especially hindering the effectiveness

128
00:08:55,760 --> 00:09:02,040
of ad blockers and privacy enhancing extensions we have haven't tested

129
00:09:00,079 --> 00:09:07,200
firefox's performance with you know extensions or without cuz realistically

130
00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:10,600
most of you aren't using it but hey maybe next time we do an update on this

131
00:09:08,920 --> 00:09:15,040
the situation will have changed because you'll have listened to Our advice why

132
00:09:12,680 --> 00:09:19,040
not give it a try and while you're at it why not try out our sponsor Odo if

133
00:09:17,480 --> 00:09:22,720
you're running a business keeping track of a hundred different apps all running

134
00:09:20,839 --> 00:09:27,079
at once can be a pain I mean just imagine all those Chrome tabs with odu's

135
00:09:25,279 --> 00:09:31,360
all-in-one business management software you can combine them into a single

136
00:09:28,839 --> 00:09:35,399
Unified operating system check out their CRM and sales apps which make lead

137
00:09:33,360 --> 00:09:38,880
generation and closing deals easier than ever their time sheets app helps you

138
00:09:37,399 --> 00:09:43,959
keep close track of your employee schedules and their accounting app lets

139
00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:49,200
you autocreate and send invoices and it integrates with 28,000 Banks from all

140
00:09:46,920 --> 00:09:54,000
around the world and if you only need one single app to shore up some holes

141
00:09:51,519 --> 00:09:58,640
hey you can get access to that for free so start saving time and resources by

142
00:09:56,040 --> 00:10:03,000
unifying your processes with ODU you can check them out in the description for a

143
00:10:00,279 --> 00:10:06,440
free 14-day trial or to set up a demo with their expert team thanks for

144
00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:11,640
watching if you guys liked this video maybe you'll enjoy another Deep dive into minor differences in computer

145
00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:15,920
performance check out our video where we tested 12 of the same CPU so that we

146
00:10:14,519 --> 00:10:20,760
could find a set of them that were nearly identical in performance why did

147
00:10:18,240 --> 00:10:25,720
we need those we'll never tell well we will in that video but not

148
00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:25,720
here