Sloth
Extension Actions
- Extension status: Featured
- Live on Store
Automatically discards all tabs at startup, before they load, reducing memory footprint and unnecessary bandwidth usage.
An open-source and light-weight chrome / chromium extension which ensures that tabs are lazily loaded.
Source code: https://github.com/hrj/sloth
Requires Chrome 54+.
## How it works
This plugin uses the discard API available since Chrome 54. All tabs except new tabs or "special" tabs are discarded. Discarded tabs are visible in the tab bar, but not loaded from the network nor kept in memory.
If a window doesn't have a new tab, it is created and activated. This prevents any tab from loading during startup, unless you explicitly select it.
Special tabs are those with chrome:// URLs, for example.
Note: Where there are hundreds of tabs open in the session, a couple of them sneak through and become active. This limitation is due to the design of the browser. See https://github.com/hrj/sloth/issues/1.
## History / Credits
I found an extension called Native Lazy Tabs here. It was distributed under the GPL license. I adapted it and added the "new tab" feature.
The icon is by Jaime Serra, distributed under the CC license.
Latest reviews
- IT Forrest
- Works fantastically!
- Xalomon
- I have 7 windows with more than 600 tabs opened total. The whole point of adding this extensions is to have a quick restart of the browser, and to have one with low memory usage as only the active tabs of those windows would be loaded. When looking at the task manager it seems this extension opens a gorillion of new tab pages in the background, each with their google.com subframe, even when told not to in options. Those are loaded instead of the pages I have opened, but this makes the browser slower to start up and those use 600MB memory which is more than the pages loaded from the background used. Completely the opposite of what one wants, and it's clear this wasn't tested with more than 500 idle tabs opened, which would be a reason to want an extension like this.
- Xalomon
- I have 7 windows with more than 600 tabs opened total. The whole point of adding this extensions is to have a quick restart of the browser, and to have one with low memory usage as only the active tabs of those windows would be loaded. When looking at the task manager it seems this extension opens a gorillion of new tab pages in the background, each with their google.com subframe, even when told not to in options. Those are loaded instead of the pages I have opened, but this makes the browser slower to start up and those use 600MB memory which is more than the pages loaded from the background used. Completely the opposite of what one wants, and it's clear this wasn't tested with more than 500 idle tabs opened, which would be a reason to want an extension like this.
- Online ReD Settings
- Simply perfect.
- Online ReD Settings
- Simply perfect.
- Ashish Bisht
- working awesome !
- Ashish Bisht
- working awesome !
- Anonymous
- Funciona perfecto
- Taehl
- Finally, something that stops all of my tabs loading at the same time. However, your "new tab" option doesn't work - opening Chromium loads the last tab, waits a moment, THEN opens a new tab.
- Taehl
- Finally, something that stops all of my tabs loading at the same time. However, your "new tab" option doesn't work - opening Chromium loads the last tab, waits a moment, THEN opens a new tab.
- Giorgio Liscio
- Open all bookmarks in a folder doesn't seem to work... all tabs start loading at the same time
- Giorgio Liscio
- Open all bookmarks in a folder doesn't seem to work... all tabs start loading at the same time
- lori f
- Does what it says; simply works.
- lori f
- Does what it says; simply works.
- krister viirsaar
- The promise is great, but unfortunately having this extension installed made the browser forger URLs of my pinned tabs. Tab was still there, but was left at about:blank. Uninstalling this (and only this extension) fixed the problem.
- krister viirsaar
- The promise is great, but unfortunately having this extension installed made the browser forger URLs of my pinned tabs. Tab was still there, but was left at about:blank. Uninstalling this (and only this extension) fixed the problem.
- Rainbow Warrior Princess
- "All tabs except new tabs or "special" tabs are discarded. Special tabs are those with chrome:// URLs, for example." Special tabs are also pinned tabs, right? And what about the startup page? Suggestion: Option to automatically load the startup page or a defined page (whitelist)
- Rainbow Warrior Princess
- "All tabs except new tabs or "special" tabs are discarded. Special tabs are those with chrome:// URLs, for example." Special tabs are also pinned tabs, right? And what about the startup page? Suggestion: Option to automatically load the startup page or a defined page (whitelist)
- Colin Gott
- It works!. It makes tabs remain unloaded until you switch to them. CPU and memory are now available for tasks!
- Colin Gott
- It works!. It makes tabs remain unloaded until you switch to them. CPU and memory are now available for tasks!
- sooqua
- This cured my cancer. 11/9
- sooqua
- This cured my cancer. 11/9
- Алексей LeX
- Thanks!
- Алексей LeX
- Thanks!
- Artem Smirnov
- Работает отлично, спасибо! Works well, thanks!
- Rosdi Kasim
- Works as described! Love this extension.
- Rosdi Kasim
- Works as described! Love this extension.