🔒 Friendly reminder: Browser extensions lose support and change developers. Take a minute to review what’s installed and ditch anything you don’t use. On Chrome, tap the three dots near your profile icon, hover over Extensions, then select Manage Extensions. On Safari, go to Preferences > Extensions.
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5 ways to increase your PC's download speed
You may have a poor internet connection if downloads take forever to reach 100%. Outages or poorly-constructed websites could also be to blame. Whatever the cause is, try these tricks to increase the download speed on your PC.
👁️ Check your Chrome extensions: Some “helpful” Chrome extensions with over 1.7 million installs were secretly tracking your browser moves and even rerouting clicks. They looked benign, like color pickers or VPN tools. Spoiler: They weren’t. Google’s still cleaning up the mess, but some are still live. Time to check your browser like it’s the bedsheets at a seedy motel.
280 million
Chrome users who have installed shady extensions in the past three years. These extensions included malware and often asked for advanced permissions during installation. On average, dangerous extensions stayed in the Chrome store for over a year before getting the boot. Good job there, Google.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Old Chrome extensions can slow things down. Click the three-dot icon (top right), go to Extensions > Manage Extensions, pick the ones you don’t need, and hit Remove.
Chromebook slow? Press Search + Escape to open Task Manager to see apps and tabs eating up memory or CPU. Click one and hit End Process to close it. Next, in Chrome browser, tap the Extensions icon (top right) > Manage Extensions and Remove any you don’t use anymore.
🗂️ Show file extensions in Windows: By default, Windows hides the suffixes at the end of file names (like .jpeg, .mp4 or .exe). You’ll want these visible, so you don’t accidentally open a malicious file that looks like a photo but is actually an executable. To turn them on, open File Explorer > View > Show > File name extensions.
🕶️ Use extensions in Incognito: By default, Chrome disables extensions in Incognito mode. But if you want something like an ad blocker to stay on, you can allow it. Click the Extensions icon (top right) > Manage extensions > (Extension Name) Details, then toggle on Allow in Incognito.
🌐 Clear out old extensions: Unused browser extensions can slow things down or quietly collect your data. In Chrome, click the three-dot menu > Extensions > Manage Extensions. On Safari, go to Settings > Extensions. Remove anything you don’t need.
🍏 Auto-launch apps on your Mac: Always opening the same app? Do yourself a favor and set it to open on startup. Go to System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions. Under Open at Login, click the (+) button and choose your app. Bonus: To remove one you’re not using, select it and hit the (–) button.
Chromebook lagging? Press Search + Escape to open the Task Manager. You’ll see a list of apps, browser tabs and extensions. Look for anything using a lot of memory or CPU (processing power). If something stands out, click it and select End Process to force it to close.