Google Chrome To Reduce RAM Consumption With New Technique

The Chrome browser isn’t necessarily known for being low on memory. In the past few years, the developers have tried again and again to limit consumption. Now Google has come up with a new way to reduce occupancy.

Google wants to use the TerminateProcess API

According to MSPoweruser, the “TerminateProcess” API of Windows 10 will be used this time. With the interface, all threads belonging to a process can be terminated without having to consider other factors. The clean termination of a process often turns out to be difficult in practice, since all threads have to be waited for. It can therefore happen that processes are not terminated despite being prompted.

Processes often just keep running

This results in the problem that some processes simply continue to be executed, although the associated browser tab or even the entire browser has long been closed. The active processes, then of course also use resources and occupy part of the main memory. That should change with the “TerminateProcess” API. The reserved RAM is to be fully released as soon as a browser window is closed.

Approach with SegmentHeap endangered the stability

It was only in the summer that Google announced that Chrome would use fewer resources in the future. To reduce RAM consumption by 27 percent, the “SegmentHeap” technology from Microsoft should be used. However, this jeopardized the stability of the browser, so that efforts were discontinued a short time later.