A man in a suit sits at an outdoor table with a laptop and coffee cup, looking up with a frustrated expression, hands raised, likely dealing with a problematic browser.

Is Your Browser Grinding You Down?

We recently had a couple of users reporting Zahara being slow, after some investigation it turned out that their browser was the issue. A simple fix in this case, but it took time to work out what the issue was.

One of Zahara’s strengths is that it is cloud-based, so it can be accessed from any device with a web-browser and internet access. Your browser working well is key to Zahara’s performance, so we have put together a guide on how to increase your browser’s performance.

1. Add-ons – what are they doing and are they slowing you down?

Given that malfunctioning add-ons are the number one cause of browser problems, this should always be your first place to start looking. Your browser should enable you to see what add-ons you have working, so find this list and see what’s running.

To see if it is an add-on causing your problems, try running your browser in safe mode – this will run the browser in the default mode and won’t have any add-ons running. This should help you narrow down the cause.

2. Reduce memory usage

Browsers use a lot of RAM – so if your computer doesn’t have much RAM, you may find that your browser may be very slow or crash. The best way to prevent this is to occasionally close it down completely

Another option is to install The Great Suspender for Chrome. This will put your open tabs into a low use mode, so they will use significantly less memory when not being used.

3. Disable unnecessary scripts

Unnecessary scripts running in your browser can bring many unwanted issues, most common being hanging and freezing. There are a few add-ons you can choose from to block scripts running on sites you don’t want them to, and permit them on sites you want them. Disabling these scripts will help pages load faster.

4. Plugins, plugins, plugins

It is quite common for browsers to disable troublesome plugins without you realising, but there is a chance they could go unnoticed and cause you issues. To see your plugins enter chrome://settings/content into the address bar to access a page that lets you manage your plugins.

5. Reset and reinstall

If all this doesn’t work, and you are at the point of throwing your entire setup out the window, try resetting and reinstalling the browser. Your browser will have the option to do this – a simple google search on how to reset browser will show you how on your browser.

If absolutely none of these steps work, then you can either throw your computer out of the window and do something else, or contact our support if you are having Zahara issues and we can help you out.

Want to see how your browser works with Zahara? Start your free trial today.

 

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