Your Browser Is Killing Your Computer! ☠

Do you also have an old machine that you use daily for work or development? Maybe an i3 processor, limited RAM, and Chrome as your default browser? And let's be real—Chrome is a memory hog. Ever found yourself constantly closing tabs because your system starts lagging?

Well, what if I told you Chrome has a built-in trick to manage memory way more efficiently? The magic keyword here is Chrome Proactive Discards.

Unlock the Secret Use: chrome://discards

Try this: Open Chrome, type the following into your address bar, and hit Enter:

chrome://discards/

A window like this would open up :

You'll see a page listing all your currently open tabs, their memory usage, and—most importantly—whether they’re eligible for discarding to free up memory.

This little-known trick has been around for years, but in Chrome 108, Google introduced Memory Saver Mode and Energy Saver Mode, making tab discarding more aggressive and accessible. Let’s break it down.

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Memory Saver Mode: What It Does & Why It Matters

Let’s talk about memory saver mode:

When Memory Saver Mode is enabled, Chrome will automatically discard tabs that have been inactive for a while ( proactive discard ). This means the memory they were using is freed up for active tabs and other applications.

When a tab is discarded, its title and favicon still appear in the tab strip but the page itself is gone, exactly as if the tab had been closed normally. If the user revisits that tab, the page will be reloaded automatically.

How Does It Work?

• When a tab is discarded, its title and favicon remain visible, but the page itself is removed from memory.

• When you click on the discarded tab again, Chrome reloads it automatically.

• If your site is mostly static content (like a blog or news site), this won’t affect the experience much. But for interactive sites—like dashboards, forms, or applications that rely on persistent states—a reload can be frustrating if the site doesn’t restore where the user left off.

This is not new—Chrome has been discarding tabs in extreme memory-pressure situations for years. But with Chrome 108+, this happens proactively, meaning even if your system isn’t struggling, Chrome might discard inactive tabs to optimize resources.

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Taking Control: Manually Discard Tabs Anytime!

Now, this is where it gets powerful. You don’t have to wait for Chrome to decide when to discard tabs—you can do it yourself manually using the chrome://discards/ page.

Why Is This Useful?

• I often have 110+ tabs open for development and research (yes, really).

• My laptop is an Intel i3 7th Gen U series—not exactly a powerhouse.

• Yet, everything runs smoothly because I proactively discard tabs I don’t need at the moment.

⚠️ Heads up! If you close Chrome completely and restart, all tabs will reload at once. So be mindful of that before discarding everything.

This page can help you test the discarded state for your application as well as you can test how a page handles being discarded by loading the page and then visiting chrome://discards in a separate tab or window.

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How to Manually Discard Tabs in Chrome

1️⃣ Open chrome://discards

• This will list all your open tabs, their activity status, and their discard eligibility.

2️⃣ Locate the tab you want to discard

• Find the tab that’s hogging memory but isn’t currently needed.

3️⃣ Click "Urgent Discard"

• This instantly discards the tab, freeing up system memory.

• When you revisit the tab, it will reload from scratch.

However, since tab discards and restores are almost identical to page reloads, if you test that the user state is restored after a reload in the middle of a user flow, it will likely work for a discard/restore as well.

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Proactive Discard vs. Urgent Discard: What’s the Difference?

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Testing Tab Discards for Developers

If you’re a developer (like me), you can also test how your application handles tab discarding:

1. Open your web app in Chrome.

2. Open chrome://discards/ in another tab.

3. Locate your app’s tab and click "Urgent Discard."

4. Revisit the tab and check if your app restores correctly.

Since discarding a tab is essentially the same as a full reload, if your app maintains a user state on reload, it should handle discarding well.

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How Chrome Compares to Other Browsers

Now, how does Chrome’s Memory Saver Mode and chrome://discards/ feature compare to other browsers? Let’s break it down.

1️⃣ Microsoft Edge

• Memory Management: Edge has a built-in Sleeping Tabs feature, which automatically freezes inactive tabs instead of discarding them completely.

• Difference from Chrome:

  • Sleeping Tabs don’t remove tabs from memory entirely; they just pause them.

  • Chrome discards tabs completely, meaning they must be reloaded when accessed again.

  • Edge has better battery optimizations, but Chrome gives finer manual control over tab discarding.

2️⃣ Mozilla Firefox

• Memory Management: Firefox has Automatic Tab Unloading, but it works only under extreme memory pressure.

• Difference from Chrome:

  • Firefox doesn’t offer manual tab discarding like Chrome does.

  • No built-in UI chrome://discards/ for manually managing inactive tabs.

  • Firefox relies more on background optimizations instead of giving users direct control.

3️⃣ Safari

• Memory Management: Safari is optimized for macOS and automatically unloads background tabs when memory runs low.

• Difference from Chrome:

  • No direct way to manually discard tabs like in Chrome.

  • More aggressive in pausing background scripts to save power, but doesn’t discard as frequently.

  • Safari does a better job at keeping inactive tabs instantly accessible without reloading.

4️⃣ Brave

• Memory Management: Brave, being a Chromium-based browser, inherits Chrome’s memory-saving features but enhances them with built-in ad and tracker blocking to reduce resource usage.

• Difference from Chrome:

  • No dedicated Memory Saver Mode like Chrome 108+, but blocking ads and trackers significantly reduces memory consumption.

  • Uses a built-in "Tab Freezing" system similar to Edge's Sleeping Tabs, where inactive tabs are put to sleep rather than discarded.

  • More lightweight overall due to fewer background scripts running compared to Chrome.

5️⃣ Arc Browser

• Memory Management: Arc is built with a focus on efficiency and minimalism, handling memory differently from traditional browsers.

• Difference from Chrome:

  • Arc automatically archives tabs after a set period, removing them from active memory (similar to Chrome’s proactive discards).

  • Unlike Chrome, Arc doesn’t reload discarded tabs; instead, they are stored in a separate "Archive" section and reopened only when needed.

  • A more visual and user-friendly approach to tab management than Chrome’s technical chrome://discards/ UI.

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Final Thoughts: Make Chrome Work For You!

Most people don’t even know about chrome://discards, but this single trick has saved me from so many "Oh no, my laptop is dying" moments.

If you’re a developer, researcher, or just someone who keeps 50+ tabs open, this can massively improve your browsing experience without constantly closing and reopening tabs.

TL;DR: Why Chrome’s Tab Discarding is the Best?

✅ Manual control over discarding tabs with chrome://discards/.
✅ Proactive Memory Saver Mode keeps things snappy.
✅ Better than Firefox (which only unloads under extreme memory pressure).
✅ More control than Edge Sleeping Tabs, which just freeze instead of discarding.
✅ More aggressive than Safari, which is optimized for Mac but lacks manual control.

Do share your views on this feature and did you know about this?

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