Brave Browser Hogging CPU & Memory? Effective Fixes to Boost Performance

Table of Contents

• How to Fix Brave Browser High CPU and Memory Usage¶
• How do you make Brave consume less RAM?¶
• Does Brave take up a lot of CPU?¶

Is your Brave browser slowing down your system to a crawl? Are you experiencing frequent freezes or crashes while browsing? If you’ve noticed Brave consuming an unusually high amount of CPU and memory, you’re not alone. This issue can significantly impact your computer’s overall performance, making everyday tasks frustrating. Fortunately, there are several effective solutions you can implement to optimize Brave’s performance and reclaim your system resources.

How to Fix Brave Browser High CPU and Memory Usage¶

Before diving into more complex solutions, a simple restart of your computer or just the Brave browser itself can sometimes resolve temporary glitches causing high resource usage. If the problem persists after a restart, the following solutions can help you pinpoint and eliminate the root cause of Brave’s excessive CPU and memory consumption on your Windows PC.

1. Clear Cache and Cookie Data
2. Disable Hardware Acceleration
3. Utilize Brave’s Task Manager
4. Inspect Browser Extensions
5. Establish a New Brave User Profile
6. Restore Brave Settings to Default

Let’s explore each of these solutions in detail to help you effectively address Brave’s high resource usage.

1] Clear Cookie and Cache Data¶

Web browsers accumulate cached data and cookies to enhance browsing speed and personalize user experiences. However, over time, corrupted or outdated cache and cookie data can become problematic, leading to increased resource consumption. Clearing this data can often resolve performance issues related to browser resource usage. Here’s how to clear cache and cookies in Brave:

1. Launch Brave Browser: Open the Brave browser on your computer.
2. Access Settings: Click the Menu icon (three horizontal lines or dots) located in the top right corner of the browser window. From the dropdown menu, select Settings.
3. Navigate to Privacy and Security: In the left-hand sidebar of the Settings page, click on Privacy and security.
4. Open Clear Browsing Data: On the right side panel, find and click on Clear browsing data.
5. Configure Time Range and Data Types: In the “Clear browsing data” window, set the Time range to All time to ensure complete removal of old data. Then, check the boxes next to:
   • Cookies and other site data
   • Cached images and files
6. Clear Data: Finally, click the Clear data button to initiate the process.

Optionally, you can also choose to clear your browsing history at this stage if desired. After clearing the cache and cookies, restart Brave and monitor if CPU and memory usage has improved.

2] Disable Hardware Acceleration¶

Hardware acceleration is a feature that utilizes your computer’s GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to handle graphically intensive tasks within the browser, aiming to improve performance and responsiveness. While beneficial in many cases, hardware acceleration can sometimes lead to increased memory consumption, especially if there are compatibility issues with your graphics drivers or specific websites.

Disabling hardware acceleration can be a viable solution, particularly if you are primarily experiencing high memory usage. However, it’s important to note that disabling this feature might increase CPU usage in some scenarios as the CPU takes over tasks previously handled by the GPU. Therefore, this solution is generally recommended if memory consumption is the primary concern. Here are the steps to disable hardware acceleration in Brave:

1. Open Brave Browser: Launch the Brave browser.
2. Access Settings: Click on the Menu icon (three horizontal lines or dots) in the top right corner and select Settings.
3. Navigate to System Settings: In the left sidebar of the Settings page, scroll down and click on System.
4. Toggle Hardware Acceleration Off: Locate the option labeled “Use hardware acceleration when available” and toggle the switch to the off position. It will typically change from blue (on) to grey (off).
5. Relaunch Brave: Close and reopen the Brave browser for the changes to take effect.

Some users have also reported that disabling the “Continue running background apps when Brave is closed” option, located in the same System settings section, can further reduce memory consumption. Consider disabling this option as well if disabling hardware acceleration alone does not fully resolve the issue.

3] Utilize Brave’s Task Manager¶

Brave, like other Chromium-based browsers, has its own built-in Task Manager. This tool is invaluable for identifying specific tabs, extensions, or processes within Brave that are consuming disproportionate system resources. Using Brave’s Task Manager allows you to pinpoint resource-intensive culprits and take targeted action.

To access Brave’s Task Manager, use the following steps:

1. Open Brave Browser: Launch the Brave browser.
2. Access Task Manager: There are a couple of ways to open the Task Manager:
   • Using the Menu: Click on the Menu icon (three horizontal lines or dots) in the top right corner, navigate to More tools, and then select Task manager.
   • Using Keyboard Shortcut: Press Shift + Esc keys simultaneously while Brave is the active window.

Once the Task Manager is open, you will see a list of processes running within Brave, along with their CPU, Memory, and Network usage. Examine the list to identify any processes with unusually high CPU or Memory figures. These could be specific tabs with complex web applications, problematic extensions, or even background processes.

If you identify a process that is hogging resources, you can select it and click the “End process” button at the bottom of the Task Manager window to terminate it. This can help free up system resources and improve Brave’s performance.

Furthermore, it is beneficial to test Brave in Private Mode (Incognito Mode). If the high CPU or memory usage issue disappears in Private Mode, it strongly suggests that an extension, theme, or browser addon is the likely cause. Private Mode disables extensions and often runs with default settings, helping isolate such conflicts.

4] Inspect Browser Extensions¶

Browser extensions are powerful tools that enhance browser functionality, but they can also be a source of performance issues if poorly coded, outdated, or conflicting with other extensions or browser features. Extensions run in the background and can consume CPU and memory even when not actively in use.

To diagnose if an extension is causing high resource consumption, you can systematically disable them.

1. Open Brave Browser: Launch the Brave browser.
2. Access Extensions Page: Go to the Extensions page by either:
   • Typing brave://extensions/ in the address bar and pressing Enter.
   • Clicking the Menu icon, navigating to More tools, and then selecting Extensions.
3. Disable Extensions: On the Extensions page, you will see a list of all installed extensions. You can disable extensions using two primary methods:
   • Disable One by One: Toggle the switch next to each extension to the off position (switch will turn grey). Disable extensions one at a time, restarting Brave and checking resource usage after each disablement to pinpoint the culprit.
   • Disable All at Once: For a quicker initial test, disable all extensions by toggling off the switch for each one. Then, re-enable them one by one, again monitoring resource usage after each re-enablement.

Some users have specifically reported that extensions like Grammarly and various Video Downloader extensions have been associated with high resource usage in browsers. If you have these or similar extensions installed, consider disabling them first during your troubleshooting.

Once you identify a problematic extension, you have a few options:

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• Disable it: If you don’t frequently use the extension, simply keep it disabled.
• Remove it: If you rarely or never use the extension, uninstall it completely from Brave.
• Look for Alternatives: If the extension provides essential functionality, research and try to find alternative extensions that offer similar features but are known to be more resource-efficient.
• Check for Updates: Ensure that your extensions are updated to their latest versions, as developers often release updates to fix bugs and improve performance.

5] Establish a New Brave User Profile¶

Your Brave user profile stores your browsing data, settings, extensions, and customizations. Over time, profile data can become corrupted due to various reasons, leading to unexpected browser behavior, including high resource consumption. Creating a new user profile can effectively rule out profile corruption as a cause of the issue.

Creating a new Brave user profile essentially sets up a fresh browsing environment with default settings and no extensions. If the high CPU and memory usage issue disappears in the new profile, it indicates that your original profile is likely corrupted.

Follow these steps to create a new Brave user profile:

1. Open Brave Browser: Launch the Brave browser.
2. Access Profile Settings: Click on the Profile icon located to the left of the Menu icon in the top right corner (it might be a generic person icon or your profile picture if you’ve set one).
3. Add Profile: From the profile dropdown menu, click on Add.
4. Configure New Profile: In the “Add Person” window:
   • Name your profile: Enter a descriptive name for the new profile (e.g., “Test Profile” or “Brave Clean Profile”).
   • Choose a theme (optional): You can select a theme for the new profile to visually differentiate it from your main profile.
   • Click Done.

Brave will open a new browser window with the newly created profile. Use this new profile for browsing for a while and monitor its CPU and memory usage. If the issue is resolved in the new profile, you can consider migrating your essential data (bookmarks, passwords – carefully and selectively) from your old profile to the new one. Alternatively, you can continue using the new profile and treat the old profile as corrupted and discard it.

6] Restore Brave Settings to Default¶

If none of the preceding solutions have resolved the high CPU and memory usage issue, resetting Brave browser settings to their default values can be a more drastic but potentially effective step. Resetting settings reverts all browser configurations to their original state, disabling custom settings that might be contributing to the problem. This is like giving Brave a clean slate in terms of its configuration.

Here’s how to reset Brave settings to default:

1. Open Brave Browser: Launch the Brave browser.
2. Access Settings: Click the Menu icon (three horizontal lines or dots) in the top right corner and select Settings.
3. Navigate to Reset Settings: In the left sidebar of the Settings page, scroll down to the bottom and click on Additional settings. Then, scroll down further and click on Reset settings.
4. Confirm Reset: On the Reset settings page, click on “Restore settings to their original defaults”.
5. Final Confirmation: A confirmation dialog box will appear. Click Reset settings to proceed with the reset.

After resetting, Brave will restart with default settings. You will need to reconfigure any custom settings you had previously set. Monitor Brave’s performance after the reset to see if the high resource usage issue is resolved.

How do you make Brave consume less RAM?¶

To reduce Brave’s RAM consumption, prioritize disabling Hardware Acceleration and the “Continue running background apps when Brave is closed” option as described in Solution 2. Conflicting or poorly optimized extensions are also major contributors to high RAM usage; systematically check and manage your extensions as outlined in Solution 4. If these steps are insufficient, resetting Brave to default settings (Solution 6) can provide a clean start and minimize RAM usage.

Does Brave take up a lot of CPU?¶

Brave can consume significant CPU resources in certain situations. Common causes include problematic extensions, excessive browser cache, corrupted cookie data, and corrupted user profiles. Restarting your computer and Brave browser is a quick initial troubleshooting step. The solutions detailed in this article, particularly clearing cache and cookies (Solution 1), managing extensions (Solution 4), and creating a new user profile (Solution 5), are designed to address these common causes of high CPU usage in Brave. By systematically applying these fixes, you can effectively diagnose and resolve the issue.

By systematically working through these solutions, you should be able to identify and resolve the issues causing Brave to consume excessive CPU and memory, restoring your system’s performance and ensuring a smoother browsing experience.

If you found these solutions helpful or have other tips for optimizing Brave browser performance, please share your experiences and insights in the comments below!