Tricks to To Make Your Browser Faster

Cruising the web and realize your web browser is moving a bit slow? Perhaps is time to do a bit of “spring cleaning.” While we are probably all online a bit more these days, that’s no excuse to continue to have a slow browsing experience. We constantly deal with slow browsers at Boxaid. Sometimes it just some cleanup, sometimes it’s invasive malware and sometimes it is your Internet speed. Our computer repair services and technicians are always happy to help but sometimes you can do so some simple computer maintenance yourself and save a few dollars. Some of the most common causes of the problem with slow web browsing or your web browser taking a long time to load are:

Clear Cache and Cookies

Everywhere you’ve been and all the places you are going to explore on the web will save little breadcrumbs to help your user experience.  Your browser collects (or caches) certain files and data to speed up your browsing experience. These temporary internet files are saved on your hard drive with information about websites you have visited to help speed up the time it takes to load the pages if you go back to them. While these conveniences are nice, over time they tend to bloat and leave unnecessary data to slow down your machine. It is a good idea to clear these every so often. If you want to keep your browsing speed as quick as can be, clear the cache and cookies every so often. A good recommendation is once every three months. Once you do so, you will notice a slight slowdown as your browser rebuilds its cache, but speed should quickly go back to normal.

Just about every web browser has an easy way for you to clear your cache and cookies out. If you’re experiencing a slow browser, give this a try to speed things up:

Chrome:

1. Open Chrome on your desktop.
2. At the top right, click the three-dot icon.
3. Click on More tools, followed by Clear browsing data. (You can also get here by typing Ctrl + Shift + Delete.)
4. At the top of the page, choose a time frame. To delete your entire cache and cookie history, select All time.
5. Check the boxes next to Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files.
6. Click Clear data.

              Firefox:

1. Open Firefox on your desktop.
2. Click the three-line menu button in the top right corner and select Options.
3. Select Privacy & Security and locate the Cookies and Site Data section.
4. Click Clear Data. Check the boxes next to Cookies and site data and Cached Web Content.
5. Click Clear.

Safari:

1. Open Safari on your Mac.
2. Click Safari on the menu bar at the top of the screen and select Preferences.
3. Click Privacy, followed by Manage Website Data.
4. Click Remove All.

Edge:

1. Open Microsoft Edge on your desktop.
2. Click the three-dot menu in the upper right and select Settings.
3. On the Settings page click the three-line menu in the upper left and select Privacy, search, and services.
4. Under Clear browsing data, click Choose what to clear.
5. Under the section labeled Time range, choose a time frame.
6. Select Cookies and other site data, then click Clear Now.

Manage All Those Open Tabs

If you are anything like me you have 40+ tabs open across 2-3 monitors. I have things like the E-Trade account, the the Boxaid website, Facebook, the company intranet, five tech articles I want to read later, Twitter, and so much more. Knowing that all these tabs are slowing down my browser certainly irks me. Clearing out the behind-the-scenes cache and cookie clutter isn’t the only way to speed up your web experience. Truth be told, the more tabs you have open, the slower your browser is going to run. Better managing your open tabs more efficiently will also help you browse faster. If you need to keep track of several sites to return to later, you can use a read-it-later service or save the site links to your browser’s bookmarks list. I often create temporary folders for this exact purpose. There’s also a great little Tab history that is found in Chrome. Just in case you close one of your tabs on purpose or accidentally and want to go back to that tab. Check out the pic below.

Remove Extensions You are Not Using

Browser extensions can give you access to tools and features not readily available out of the box in your browser. But sometimes, these extras come at the expense of performance. Each add-on and extension that you install takes up space on your computer and resources in the background even when you’re not using them. That means unless they are useful to you, you should delete them. Do you know how too many apps will slow down your computer, phone, or tablet? Too many plug-ins and/or extensions will do the same to your browser. These extensions take up system resources and often cause bugs and crash when they’re all running at once. While these can easily be fixed, it is good practice to do a regular check on your extensions to remove the ones you no longer need, don’t recognize, or don’t really use, and get rid of those first.

Deleting them is pretty simple:

Here’s how you can check the extensions and add-ons you’ve installed. We recommend combing through this list from time to time to remove the ones you no longer need. Chrome:

1. Open Chrome on your desktop.
2. At the top right, click the three-dot icon.
3. Click More tools, followed by Extensions.
4. Locate the extensions you want to remove and click Remove.
5. Confirm by clicking Remove again.

Firefox:

1. Open Firefox on your desktop.
2. Click the three-line menu button and select the puzzle-piece icon for Add-ons.
3. Click Extensions and scroll through your list of extensions.
4. Click the three-dot icon for the extensions you wish to remove and select Remove.

Safari:

1. Open Safari on your Mac.
2. Click Safari on the menu bar at the top of the screen and select Preferences.
3. Click Extensions.
4. To uninstall an extension, select the extension and click Uninstall.

Edge:

1. Open Microsoft Edge on your desktop.
2. Select Settings and more, followed by Extensions.
3. Click Remove under the extension you wish to remove. Click Remove again to confirm.

If you’re still running slow…

Check your WiFi signal, perhaps the issue isn’t the browser, but rather the signal strength connecting your PC to the internet. If your browser is still quite sluggish, maybe it’s time for a hard reset. Turning your PC on and off sometimes helps, but if all else fails try another browser. Safari and Chrome are known to be the fastest browsers because they have fewer added extras than some other browsers. While this might be true if issues persist it might be a good idea to uninstall and reinstall your preferable browser. A new install will ensure you have all the latest updates and a clean slate to work with. These few tips and tricks should help your browser run faster and smooth again, but if you’re still having issues, perhaps there is something else going on, give the computer repair experts of Boxaid a call. We would be happy to take a look.