Browser keeps crashing

General Help
5

You're a power user, no doubt! You're maxing out your memory, which is why your swap file is maxed out. And that with 16 GB of RAM!

Some steps you can take:

  1. Find a browser which doesn't take so much memory. I use SRWare Iron (it's Google Chrome with all the corporate spyware stripped out)... I've had as many as 50 tabs opened, I've got 12 GB of RAM, and everything still worked.

  2. Install nohang
    nohang/focal,focal,now 0.2.0-1~oibaf~f all [installed]
    sophisticated low memory handler for Linux

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/test
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nohang
sudo systemctl enable --now nohang-desktop.service

  1. Install more RAM... you've likely only got 2 memory slots, and an 8 GB stick in each slot, so you'd have to buy all new memory if you want memory interleaving for maximum data throughput. If that's not such a big concern, you might get away with buying a single 16 GB stick, keeping one 8 GB stick, giving you 24 GB. But for your usage pattern, I'd recommend 32 GB or more. If you can afford it, max the machine out.

  2. Set up another swap drive to give you more swap space. The procedure to do that:
    CSGO lagging and freezes - #16 by Mr_Magoo

  3. Recover memory periodically.
    Zorin menu > Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts
    Scroll to the bottom and click the '+' button.
    Enter the following:

Name: Reclaim Memory
Command: gnome-terminal -- /bin/sh -c 'sudo sync; sleep 3; sudo sysctl -w vm.drop_caches=3; sleep 3; sudo sync'
Shortcut: Super + M (the Windows key and M (for Memory))

When you notice your machine getting low on memory, just hit Super+M to reclaim memory.

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