Five Ways To Speed Up A Chromebook

Feel like your Chromebook is performing a little sluggishly? These tweaks can speed it up.

While newer Chromebook models do sport better processors, no-one is buying a Chromebook to run grunty applications. That doesn’t mean that slow response times aren’t annoying. If your Chromebook seems to be running poorly, try these steps.

Check that the OS is up to date

Chromebooks are supposed to update automatically, but in reality they sometimes miss updates. To ensure you’re running the newest version:

1. Click on the taskbar and choose Settings.
2. Click on Help in the left column.
3. You’ll see a message showing your version number. If your device is on the newest version, you’ll see “Your device is up to date” underneath this. If it isn’t, you’ll be able to update to the newest version.

Close tabs for apps you’re not using

An obvious step, but one that’s easy to forget. On the Chromebook, essentially effectively runs in the browser. If you leave tabs open you don’t need, that can create a drain — so practise good browser hygiene and close tabs, especially if they’re running Chrome apps.

Disable extensions and plug-ins

Chrome extensions and plug-ins can cause problems. Sometimes it will be evident that a particular extension is crashing or slowing things down; on other occasions, you may have to use guesswork by disabling them one at a time to see if it makes a difference.

To manage extensions:

1. Open Chrome.
2. Click on the main Chrome menu (top-right, or type Alt-F).
3. Click on Settings.
4. Click on Extensions in the left column.
5. You’ll see a list of extensions which you can enable or disable as needed.

For faster access to this setting, type chrome:extensions in the address bar.

Plug-ins require a little more digging:

1. Open Chrome.
2. Click on the main Chrome menu (top-right, or type Alt-F).
3. Click on Settings.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on “Show advanced settings”.
5. Scroll to Privacy and click on the “Content settings” button.
6. Scroll down to find Plug-ins and click on “Disable individual plug-ins”.
7. Click Disable under the name of any plug-ins you don’t want or suspect are causing trouble.

For faster access to this setting, type chrome:plugins in the address bar.

Sites loading too slowly

If you find web sites are loading slowly are failing to resolve, tweaking one of Google’s content settings can sometimes help:

1. Open Chrome.
2. Click on the main Chrome menu (top-right, or type Alt-F).
3. Click on Settings.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on “Show advanced settings”.
5. Scroll to Privacy, and deslect “Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors”.

Reset your Chromebook

As a last resort, you can completely reset your Chromebook. Note that this will wipe any data you have stored locally, so back up anything you want to keep.

1. Open Chrome.
2. Click on the main Chrome menu (top-right, or type Alt-F).
3. Click on Settings.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on “Show advanced settings”.
5. Scroll to the end of the list, click on Powerwash and follow the instructions.

Lifehacker 101 is a weekly feature covering fundamental techniques that Lifehacker constantly refers to, explaining them step-by-step. Hey, we were all newbies once, right?