Chrome, Oh, Chrome
Chrome’s recent memory-saving update is not only good news for PC users, but for Android device owners as well. For years now, the top browser has held the title for being the greediest RAM hog that ever walked this earth. Popular YouTuber LinusTechTips even released a viral video testing how many Chrome tabs could fill up 2 Terabytes of RAM, and managed to get shockingly far in.
Both computers and mobile devices need RAM to store data close at hand where it is immediately accessible to your system to revisit. It is many times faster than regular storage, comes in much smaller sizes, and only saves data you might need to re-use when your device is powered on.
Why Does It Need So Much RAM?
The reason Chrome’s been eating through your RAM like an absolute monster is because it always saves everything you see on the screen in a given Chrome tab separately to your RAM. If you open a website’s photo gallery which downloads 100mb of images for your viewing pleasure, those 100 megabytes are staying in the RAM until you close the tab (if you ever do). Chrome isolates every single tab in a separate RAM process, as well as any extensions and plugins you might be using, to make sure that if one crashes, it won’t take everything else down with it.