The reason for Google Chrome creating multiple processes on a Windows computer is due to the way it has been designed to create a separate process for every open tab and additional processes within each open tab.
The idea behind creating a separate process for every open tab and additional processes within each open tabs is to protect the browser from crashing and prevent the browser from being impacted by server side attacks.
For example, if you open your favorite website on Chrome and a link on that website leads to an unknown and problematic website, the unknown website won’t be able to crash the browser or cause harm, as it remains isolated within its own process.
Disable Multiple Chrome Processes in Windows?
Since, creating multiple processes is a built-in security and performance related feature in Google Chrome, it is not possible to totally eliminate or disable chrome multiple process on a Windows computer.
However, it is possible to reduce the number of multiple process being created by Google Chrome and prevent them from causing high resource usage related problems on a Windows computer.
This can be achieved by preventing Chrome from continuing to run background processes after it is closed and terminating non-essential Chrome processes by using Task Manager.
1. Terminate Chrome Processes Using Task Manager
Google Chrome comes with its own built-in Task Manager, which makes it easy to view all the processes running on the computer and terminate non-essential processes.
1. Open Google Chrome > click on 3-dots Icon > Hoover mouse over More Tools and select Task Manager.
2. On Chrome Task Manager screen, select the Chrome Process that you want to close and click on the End Process button.
3. Repeat the above steps to close other non-essential processes (if any).
2. Stop Background Running Processes
Another resource saving option, which is available within Google Chrome is to prevent background apps from running on the computer, after the browser is closed.
1. Open Google Chrome > click on 3-dots Icon and select Settings in the drop-down menu.
2. On the Settings screen, select System in the left-pane. In the right-pane, disable Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed option.
This will prevent the browser from running Chrome processes in the background on your computer.
3. Set Chrome to Open Single Process For Multiple Tabs
If your computer is low on resources, you can make Google Chrome to create a single process, even if you open multiple tabs on the computer.
1. Right-click on Chrome Icon on the Taskbar > Right-click Google Chrome and select Properties.
2. On Chrome Properties screen, go to end of the line in Target box and Insert the phrase –process-per-site after the end of the text which is currently in the Target box.
Note: There needs to be a single space before –process-per-site
3. Click on Apply and OK to close the properties screen.
If you notice any issues after making this change, simply remove the parameter (–process-per-site) from the shortcut and everything should come back-to-normal.
This method of making Chrome Browser to open a single process for multiple tabs works best, if you have the habit of opening a large number of tabs from the same website.