Although browser software tends to offer a well-refined experience these days, you’re bound to run into the odd crash or freeze that grinds your work to a halt. The reason may not be immediately obvious, and while some may be quick to blame their machine for a lousy performance, chances are the software itself is blame.

Identify and remove dodgy add-ons

Malfunctioning add-ons are the number one cause of browser problems. If your browser starts freezing or crashing, there’s a very good chance that a malfunctioning extension is to blame, so your first port of call should be to see which ones you have installed and remove any you don’t need. In Firefox, go to and check what’s listed there.

Check which add-ons you have installed to see which could be causing the crashes

You can disable or remove any unwanted ones directly from this screen. In Chrome, go to chrome://extensions. You can disable an add-on by unticking the Enabled box next to it, or remove it entirely by clicking the bin icon for that extension.

If you’re not entirely sure that an add-on is to blame for your woes, you can try running your browser in ‘safe mode’ – that is, without any add-ons and using the default settings. If that stops the crashes, you should be able to narrow down the cause. To run Firefox in safe mode, click the ‘hamburger’ button in the top-right corner and go to Help (or just click the
Help menu if you have it displayed), then select ‘Restart with Add-ons disabled’. In the box that opens, click the Restart button.

Reduce your browser’s memory usage

Browsers consume a lot of memory – especially if you have a lot of tabs open. If your computer doesn’t have that much RAM to begin with, you may find this results in your browser slowing down massively, or crashing frequently.

The easiest way to prevent your browser from using too much memory is to close it down occasionally. Right-click the taskbar, select Task Manager, then select your browser in the list and click End Task. When you restart your browser you should be offered the chance to restore all previously open tabs.

Use The Great Suspender to stop tabs consuming memory in the background

Another option is to install The Great Suspender for Chrome. This unloads, parks and suspends open tabs (aside from the one you’re currently viewing), to stop them guzzling resources in the background. Tabs can also be set to auto-suspend after a set period, and you can whitelist any tabs you want leaving alone – Gmail for example.

Alternatively, there’s OneTab for Firefox and Chrome, which converts all of your open tabs into a list. This frees up memory, and can you easily relaunch any tab by clicking on its link.

Disable unnecessary scripts

Disable unwanted scripts on web pages to stop them freezing your browser

Unwanted scripts running in your browser can cause all sorts of problems, including hangs and freezes. NoScript for Firefox and uMatrix for Chrome block plugins such as JavaScript, Java, Flash and more from running on sites other than those you’ve expressly allowed them to work on. Both add-ons let you easily permit scripts to run on sites you trust. For NoScript just click the icon when on a site and choose between Trusted, Untrusted and Temp Trusted.

With uMatrix, clicking its button lets you quickly enable or block various elements, such as cookies, images, media, scripts and frames, to make web pages load faster and keep your browser working smoothly.

Disable troublesome plugins

Most browsers now disable potentially dodgy plugins automatically, but there’s still a chance they could slip through or be re-enabled and cause trouble, so it’s worth checking them manually. Accessing the plugins page in Chrome used to involve typing chrome:/plugins into the address bar, but Google has disabled this option.

Make sure plugins are disabled in your browser to prevent problems

Instead, you need to type chrome://settings/content to access a page that lets you manage the likes of Flash and JavaScript, and instruct sites to always ask when they want to use a plugin.

To manage plugins in Firefox, type about:addons into the address box and hit Enter, then select Plugins on the left. The drop-down menu next to each plugin lets you choose from Ask to Activate, Always Activate or Never Activate. You can also choose here how automatic updates should be handled.

Block cryptocurrency miners

Cryptocurrency miners are a modern scourge. Some websites, including Salon, now give users with an ad blocker installed the option to devote some of their PC’s processing power to mining. Other sites aren’t quite so scrupulous and mine cryptocurrency in the background without informing their visitors, which can cause your browser to slow down, freeze and crash.

To read more about cryptocurrency malware and to check whether your browser is slurping CPU power behind your back, head here.

Cryptocurrency miners are becoming increasingly popular among cyber criminals

Malwarebytes blocks known crypto-miners, or you can install the No Coin extension in your browser. It’s available for Chrome, Firefox and Opera. You can pause the add-on if required, or temporarily whitelist a site if you need to allow mining to access it.

Reset and reinstall your browser

If you’ve tried everything we’ve suggested and your browser is still freezing, the only option might be to reset or reinstall it.

Doing this in Firefox is very easy. Firstly, you’ll want to back up your browser profile which contains all your passwords, bookmarks, open tabs and more. Launch File Explorer and go to %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ and copy the profile folder(s) to your desktop.

If freezing problems persist, try resetting Firefox to start afresh

To reset Firefox, click the hamburger button, choose Help and select Troubleshooting Information. Click the Refresh Firefox button. If that fixes the problem, you don’t need to worry about your saved profile folder(s). If it doesn’t do the trick, try uninstalling Firefox, and then reinstalling it and copying the saved profile folders back to where you got them from. You’ll need to close Firefox before you do this.

To reset Chrome to its original defaults, open the menu and go to Settings. Type reset into the search box, then click the Reset result. In the box that opens, click Reset.

Repair or reset Edge if the browser keeps hanging in Windows 10

To refresh Edge in Windows 10, click Start and open Settings. Open the Apps section and search for or locate Microsoft Edge. Click it and select ‘Advanced options’. In the new window, you’ll have the option to Repair or Reset Microsoft’s browser.

Rackspace has partnered with VMware to launch its Private Cloud Everywhere, enabling businesses to setup their own private cloud in data centres and co-location facilities around the world.

Private Cloud as a Service (PCaaS) allows those customers wanting to take advantage of a private cloud to do so using their own existing architecture. It also means businesses in highly regulated industries such as finance, healthcare or governmental organisations can take advantage of the security of a private cloud, while also storing data closer to their customers.

“Today marks a new era for the VMware cloud market. For the first time, enterprises can have a fully managed VMware private cloud as a service located wherever their users need it,” said Scott Crenshaw, executive vice president, private clouds at Rackspace.

“Rackspace Private Cloud Everywhere makes private cloud the optimal platform for even more enterprises and workloads. Customers receive public cloud-like services, with the ease of migration, security, performance and economic advantages of private clouds.”

The company explained those making use of Rackspace and VMware’s tie-up can build their own private cloud with savings of up to 39%, compared to building their clouds from scratch, and have the option to align costs with either operational budgets or capex.

The companies recognise that although customers may want support from Rackspace in the short term, they may have a much more detailed roadmap, preferring to operate the cloud themselves in future. This is fully supported by its Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) programme, which helps set up companies, signing the cloud over to them when the time is right.

“Rackspace has a proven track record helping customers successfully move their business to the cloud,” said Ajay Patel, senior vice president and general manager, cloud provider software business unit at VMware. 

“Rackspace Private Cloud Everywhere, powered by VMware, provides customers a common operating environment, located wherever a customer needs it, spanning customer data centers, Rackspace locations, or third-party facilities. With Rackspace, we are delivering an optimal environment for all applications-custom-built, packaged, virtualised, and SaaS.” 

Image: Shutterstock

Google has completely revamped G Suite in a bid to infuse its productivity tools with AI to reduce clutter and boost security.

Revealing the new-look G Suite today, Google doubled down on efforts to help users manage email overload – if not to achieve inbox zero – and stay on top of their to-do lists with a new Tasks feature that syncs across Gmail and Google Calendar.

“Today we’re announcing major updates to help the more than 4 million paying businesses that use G Suite work safer, smarter and more efficiently,” said David Thacker, product management VP of G Suite.

“This includes an all-new Gmail, with a brand new look on the web, advanced security features, new applications of Google’s artificial intelligence and even more integrations with other G Suite apps.”

Gmail: Using AI to declutter your inbox

Google started adding AI to Gmail last year with the ability to use ‘smart replies’ to quickly respond to emails with phrases Google’s machine learning algorithms would come up with.

Today the company expanded on that capability by extending that from its mobile app to Gmail on the web browser, as well as bringing its smart capabilities to bear on problems like the daily email deluge.

Firstly, a snooze button lets you postpone emails that users don’t have time to reply to immediately, allowing users to set a time to send that email back to the top of their unreads.

A host of buttons in the top-right corner also easily allows users to access Calendar and other useful apps.

Anything that’s unread but not been responded to, Gmail will ‘nudge’ users about, highlighting the age of the message next to it in yellow text and asking whether users would like to reply.

High-priority notifications are coming to Gmail on mobile too, with Gmail’s smart capabilities selecting messages it deems important and re-flagging them for users’ attention. It’ll also suggest when to unsubscribe from newsletters or promotions that are regularly left unopened.

Gmail: Confidential mode

With phishing attacks, ransomware and impersonation attacks all serious threats organisations face, Google has also taken the opportunity to improve security.

“We’ve revisited some of the fundamentals of email security to make everyone’s data safe,” explained Jacob Bank, product manager of Gmail.

The new Gmail will try to improve user security by flagging potentially dangerous emails that make it through its spam filter with a big red message.

But the key feature is confidential mode, which allows people to remove the ability to forward, copy, download or print certain messages, such as messages containing personal information.

It also lets users set expiration dates for messages so that data is automatically deleted.

Gmail: Offline capability

For executives trying to use their downtime to stay on top of their emails, a new offline mode will be a huge help. It allows users to search their email, compose emails, respond to messages and archive up to 90 days of messages offline, syncing the changes when they’re connected to the internet again.

Tasks

Google has also introduced Tasks on the web browser, a new tool that lets users create tasks (and sub-tasks within those), adding due dates for those tasks and notifications to remind you when the deadline is approaching.

Just dragging an email from Gmail into Tasks creates a new to-do item, and once a due date’s added it’ll appear in Calendar.

Google Cloud is gaining traction with enterprises, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, growing substantially in the first quarter of 2018 a year after it started earning $1 billion in revenue each quarter.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, doesn’t reveal specific revenue figures for Google’s cloud, instead lumping them together in its “other revenues” column with Google Play and hardware products, but the giant’s revenue figures released earlier this week revealed that Google Cloud helped that division earn $4.35 billion for Q1 2018, up from $3.2 billion a year ago.

Meanwhile, Pichai gave a little more away in an earnings call earlier this week, saying the division’s growth was helped by Google Cloud’s recent success with enterprises. 

“We are growing across the board and are also signing significantly larger, more strategic deals for cloud,” he said, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. “Our security capabilities, the easy-to-use advanced data analytics and machine learning solutions and the secure and industry-leading collaboration platform, G Suite, are winning customers over. Google Cloud is growing well.”

“We believe our secure environment is an important factor in driving enterprise customer wins,” he added. “G Suite customers like Colgate-Palmolive company tell us that no one offers a better combination of hardware, network and data security.”

He referenced Cloud AutoML as one of Google’s headline launches, saying it’s making it easier for businesses without machine learning resource to build complex neural nets.

Over the last year, Google has also invested heavily in infrastructure, ensuring it can keep up with the likes of AWS and Microsoft.

“Our global infrastructure continues to expand to support demand,” Pichai added. “We commissioned three new subsea cables and announced new regions in Canada, Japan, Netherlands and Saudi Arabia, bringing our total of recently launched and upcoming regions to 20.”