Google has introduced new features designed to improve the browsing experience in Chrome.
As stated on a page on Google’s support site, users can access Chrome’s performance settings by navigating to: More > Settings > Performance > General. The page indicates that this feature is enabled by default.
However, if you try to reach that section, it may not yet be available to you. There is a way to activate this feature through a Chrome flag. It’s worth noting that the Performance alerts feature was first introduced in the Google Chrome Canary channel in July 2024, before being added to the stable version.
Steps to activate performance issue alerts in Google Chrome
- Visit chrome://flags/
- In the search box at the top of the page, type “performance.”
- You should see this result:
“Enable performance intervention suggestions.
When turned on, a UI will automatically pop up to recommend tabs needing attention during poor performance periods. – Mac, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, Lacros
- 4. Click the dropdown menu next to this option and select Enabled.
- 5. Close Chrome and then reopen it by clicking the Relaunch button.
- 6. Go to the Settings > Performance Settings > General section, where the option will now be visible.
If you find the alerts to be of little use, you can deactivate them.
This functionality is also found in the Brave Browser, although it is tucked away within the Settings menu, requiring the use of the search function to discover it. While the flag can be activated in Vivaldi and Opera, the corresponding setting is not available in the menu of either browser. Additionally, this flag is not present in Microsoft Edge.
Once enabled, the feature will display a notification, which appears as a badge resembling the Performance icon (odometer). This icon is located on the toolbar next to your profile picture. By clicking on it, a warning will be presented indicating that some tabs are using excessive resources, and it suggests that Chrome can help by disabling those tabs. Essentially, it pinpoints the tabs causing slowdowns and recommends employing the Memory Saver feature to suspend them. Users have the option to monitor resource-intensive tabs manually through Chrome’s Task Manager; however, this tool might be more complex than what most users are used to, making the performance issue alerts a beneficial addition. Personally, I prefer using the Auto Tab Discard extension (available for Firefox/Chrome) for suspending tabs.
Unfortunately, I could not activate the performance alerts in Chrome. I opened several tabs, ranging from online shopping to video streaming sites, but did not receive any warnings. I even throttled the network speed via Chrome’s Developer Console and loaded resource-heavy pages, yet the expected notification did not appear. This is a good sign, indicating everything is operating smoothly, but it would have been interesting to see the Performance Fix feature in action.
To understand how the Performance Detection Tool works, you can watch a demonstration on Google’s blog.
Image Source: Tada Images / Shutterstock
