Author Topic: The Great Suspender - Chrome extension to use less CPU/RAM (Read 26,638 times)

brotherS · « **on:** October 25, 2020, 11:00 AM »

I saw that others here use the The Great Suspender Chrome extension too, but I felt it deserves its own thread.

I've been using it for a long time, but only somewhat recently I decided to change its settings again: I now allow it to suspend everything after only 15 minutes (it's smart enough to not do so when you are still actively using a tab, like writing a forum post) - even the active tabs of all the currently open Chrome windows, which I excluded before. I only put very few URLs on the exclusion list, the sites I use most often.

The result? Chrome feels faster than before, CPU load went down even more!

The setting "automatically unsuspend when tab gains focus" is fast enough for me (using a SSD), only Gmail is a bit slow to load.

Deozaan · « **Reply #1 on:** October 27, 2020, 10:30 PM »

Thanks for highlighting this. I installed it after seeing your post here and am liking it so far.

wraith808 · « **Reply #2 on:** October 28, 2020, 02:15 AM »

Quote from: Deozaan on October 27, 2020, 10:30 PM

Thanks for highlighting this. I installed it after seeing your post here and am liking it so far.

Same here!

brotherS · « **Reply #3 on:** October 30, 2020, 08:58 AM »

You're welcome!

It's one of those extensions I recommend to everyone who's using more than a few Chrome tabs/windows at the same time.

Deozaan · « **Reply #4 on:** October 30, 2020, 10:16 PM »

Quote from: brotherS on October 30, 2020, 08:58 AM

You're welcome! It's one of those extensions I recommend to everyone who's using more than a few Chrome tabs/windows at the same time.

I use tabs like I should use bookmarks. So that definitely describes me.

Sucks when some random event causes my browser to forget all the tabs that were open in the previous session though...

tomos · « **Reply #5 on:** October 30, 2020, 11:59 PM »

Quote from: Deozaan on October 30, 2020, 10:16 PM

I use tabs like I should use bookmarks.

Welcome to the club

Probably worth getting some kind of session saver then. I not often using chrome, but liked this one:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=41115.msg438882#msg438882

Shades · « **Reply #6 on:** October 31, 2020, 01:02 AM »

More often than not, I have boatloads of tabs open in FireFox. Doesn't take me long to get to 200+ open tabs...

For FireFox there are extensions that can help:
Tabs Aside
Tab Manager Plus

Both can store sets of open tabs, for future reference.

Pretty certain these are available for Chrome too. But Chrome or Chrome-derived browsers will not be installed or used on any of my personal rigs. It's already bad enough I have to tolerate it on my phone.

On my lazy days I close the browser in my computers using Windows Task Manager or the infinitely better Process Explorer. This leaves the tabs intact and as browsers do a thing called 'lazy loading' of content in tabs, closing and re-opening browsers is hardly an issue. 'Lazy loading' means loading content when the tab is actually selected and not before.

My most extreme session (according to Tabs Aside): 343 tabs

Deozaan · « **Reply #7 on:** October 31, 2020, 01:24 AM »

Quote from: tomos on October 30, 2020, 11:59 PM

Quote from: Deozaan on October 30, 2020, 10:16 PM
I use tabs like I should use bookmarks.
Welcome to the club
Probably worth getting some kind of session saver then. I not often using chrome, but liked this one:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=41115.msg438882#msg438882

Thanks. I'll look into that.

brotherS · « **Reply #8 on:** October 31, 2020, 12:17 PM »

Quote from: Deozaan on October 31, 2020, 01:24 AM

Quote from: tomos on October 30, 2020, 11:59 PM
Quote from: Deozaan on October 30, 2020, 10:16 PM
I use tabs like I should use bookmarks.
Welcome to the club
Probably worth getting some kind of session saver then. I not often using chrome, but liked this one:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=41115.msg438882#msg438882

Thanks. I'll look into that.

Unlike tomos I don't like the Tabs Outliner UI.

For Chrome I can recommend Session Buddy: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session-buddy/edacconmaakjimmfgnblocblbcdcpbko

I recall HOW MUCH it sucked when I lost ALL tabs...

Now I save them once or twice a week.

brotherS · « **Reply #9 on:** October 31, 2020, 12:26 PM »

Quote from: Shades on October 31, 2020, 01:02 AM

On my lazy days I close the browser in my computers using Windows Task Manager or the infinitely better Process Explorer. This leaves the tabs intact and as browsers do a thing called 'lazy loading' of content in tabs, closing and re-opening browsers is hardly an issue. 'Lazy loading' means loading content when the tab is actually selected and not before.

Yes, Process Explorer is great to kill Chrome in a way that it will re-open all tabs 99% of the time. I use it for every reboot.

Quote from: Shades on October 31, 2020, 01:02 AM

My most extreme session (according to Tabs Aside): 343 tabs

396 here!

BUT my new goal is to keep it below 100... 89 open right now (and about to close 2 tabs

). It's been almost a month now, I still have high hopes I'll succeed!

tomos · « **Reply #10 on:** October 31, 2020, 02:28 PM »

Quote from: brotherS on October 31, 2020, 12:26 PM

Quote
My most extreme session (according to Tabs Aside): 343 tabs
-Shades (Today at 03:02:41)
396 here!

BUT my new goal is to keep it below 100... 89 open right now (and about to close 2 tabs). It's been almost a month now, I still have high hopes I'll succeed!

do you guys hoard a lot of stuff as well

brotherS · « **Reply #11 on:** October 31, 2020, 02:41 PM »

Quote from: tomos on October 31, 2020, 02:28 PM

do you guys hoard a lot of stuff as well

Nah... after taking care of my 93 Rolls-Royces became too arduous, I now only hoard digital stuff.

brotherS · « **Reply #12 on:** February 04, 2021, 08:03 PM »

Bad news: this wonderful extension has changed owner and now has been classified as malware by Google.

Good news: someone added a replacement for The Great Suspender... The Marvellous Suspender: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-marvellous-suspender/noogafoofpebimajpfpamcfhoaifemoa . It's the last version of the old extension before crap was added to it.

Background info and stuff:
https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender/issues/1175 (scroll to the end)
https://9to5google.com/2021/02/04/the-great-suspender-extension-has-been-removed-from-chrome-web-store-for-containing-malware/

Target · « **Reply #13 on:** February 04, 2021, 10:10 PM »

Quote from: brotherS on February 04, 2021, 08:03 PM

Bad news: this wonderful extension has changed owner and now has been classified as malware by Google.

well, that explains this mornings unexpected/unexplained behaviour - Thanks brotherS!

wraith808 · « **Reply #14 on:** February 04, 2021, 10:31 PM »

Oh! That explains a lot! Thanks for the heads up!

Direct link to start of recent problems:

https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender/issues/1175#issuecomment-773498592

I'd noticed some weird urls blocked by Malwarebytes recently that I didn't know the source of, even after trying to track them down. I guess this explains it.

Deozaan · « **Reply #15 on:** February 05, 2021, 07:55 AM »

Looks like I installed it right when things were getting shady.

Interestingly enough, just today I noticed that Brave has a Safety Check feature in the settings ( brave://settings/safetyCheck ) and I ran it and it said everything was fine, including my extensions. But it didn't force-disable The Great Suspender even though I was running v7.1.8 which appears to be the version which included the malware.

But from my understanding it seems that if you disabled analytics tracking in the settings, it actually respected that setting and the malware didn't function? If that's the case, then I guess I lucked out because I had it disabled.

wraith808 · « **Reply #16 on:** February 05, 2021, 12:50 PM »

I had it disabled also, and Brave had not flagged it. But I definitely saw a few strange things, and my browser had become noticeably slower at times accessing sites at different times. I'd suspected it my be TGS, but not for that reason...

brotherS · « **Reply #17 on:** February 13, 2021, 10:30 AM »

Interesting... I hadn't noticed anything strange here, but I'm happy to have The Marvellous Suspender as a clean alternative now.

It sucks that extensions can be sold to shady folks without the user noticing, but so far I haven't read any perfect ideas to prevent that from happening.

Target · « **Reply #18 on:** March 08, 2021, 04:05 AM »

the saga continues...

Chrome disabled the marvellous suspender this morning... <sigh>

brotherS · « **Reply #19 on:** March 08, 2021, 07:50 AM »

Quote from: Target on March 08, 2021, 04:05 AM

the saga continues...

Chrome disabled the marvellous suspender this morning... <sigh>

I wanted to shout some curse words in Chrome's general direction, but then I found that my Chrome hasn't disabled it and the extension page (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-marvellous-suspender/noogafoofpebimajpfpamcfhoaifemoa) is still up. Was it just a glitch in the Matrix? Can you check if it's working again for you?

Target · « **Reply #20 on:** March 08, 2021, 10:09 PM »

well, its back again this morning, but I'll be watching with interest to see what happens...

brotherS · « **Reply #21 on:** March 08, 2021, 10:21 PM »

Quote from: Target on March 08, 2021, 10:09 PM

well, its back again this morning, but I'll be watching with interest to see what happens...

What's weird about that is that I wasn't able to find ANY info about The Marvellous Suspender being temporarily blocked or removed from the Chrome Web Store...

And while I was looking for that info, I found out that The Great Suspender has returned here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspender/jaekigmcljkkalnicnjoafgfjoefkpeg?hl=en

I'll stay with The Marvellous Suspender for now though, it works as it should.