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I know that each new tab on Google Chrome have its own process, but I have 14 chrome.exe processes running actually as I can see it on the Task Manager, and only two tabs are opened on Google Chrome.

Could it be due to Chrome extensions? What other reason can open more chrome.exe process and how to avoid it?

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    What makes you think that having many Chrome processes is killing your CPU?
    – heavyd
    Aug 11, 2010 at 12:31
  • in Task Manager, Sum of all chrome.exe process is around 300M i have two tabs open : superuser + google.com
    – mcha
    Aug 11, 2010 at 12:36
  • Using Task Manager to see "how much memory" is being used is misleading at best. Much of that memory will be shared between the various chrome.exe processes as well as other processes for common system libraries.
    – afrazier
    Aug 11, 2010 at 12:51
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    And memory consumption doesn't "kill" your CPU anyway. CPU usage does!
    – Shinrai
    Aug 11, 2010 at 14:12

4 Answers 4

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  • You're always going to have at least n + 1 chrome.exe processes, where n is the number of unique domains you have open across all visible tabs. The +1 is for the "Browser" process coordinating everything else. (e.g. I have 5 tabs open, 4 for SuperUser, 1 for another site. I have 2 Tab processes open)
  • You'll also have processes for any extensions that might have a background window open. (e.g. Adblock Plus, Ghostery, Stylish, NinjaKit all require an extra process)

Hit Shift+Esc or go to Chrome's Task Manager (under the Tools menu/sub-menu depending on which version of Chrome you're running) to see a list of all the processes and what they're being used for.

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  • Thanks, i see that the extensions i have, are consuming too much.
    – mcha
    Aug 11, 2010 at 12:53
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    i'd upvote more than once if i could, i was about to ask why i have 26 chrome.exe instances for just 10 tabs, but they're all extensions. a thousand thankyous!
    – Antony Scott
    Dec 14, 2010 at 16:54
  • There is unexplained points. Even after closing some tabs, the number of background processes of Chrome remains as it is! Why does it not be decreased?
    – SaidbakR
    Oct 10, 2016 at 13:11
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Is there any flash running in the tabs you've opened? Chrome starts a separate process for each flash-instance IIRC, and that might be why you have 14 chrome.exe opened.

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  • I have two tabs opened actually, one for superuser and the other one is google.com
    – mcha
    Aug 11, 2010 at 12:35
  • +1 - It does, and I think sometimes it starts a new thread for other reasons as well. It's not very CPU intensive, though.
    – JNK
    Aug 11, 2010 at 12:35
  • You could try using the "FlashBlock" Google Chrome extension to see whether it is actually Flash which is causing these extra Chrome.exe instances. I seem to have about 14 instances of Chrome.exe as well and I have this turned on myself, with about 5 tabs of various pages open.
    – Richard Lucas
    Aug 11, 2010 at 12:38
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Its an .exe for every plugin you have installed

so your main browser 1.exe + 1 .exe for every plugin

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My case I was still able to see around 10-15 chrome.exe in the task manager even if I haven't started Google Chrome on machine start-up.

The reason was I checked the option 'Always run in the background', this option can be found in settings or in your taskbar in the system icons you might have a Google Chrome icon, right click it and you will see that option. Just uncheck it and there wont be any chrome.exe in the task manager.

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