Google Chrome Helper: The Devourer of RAMs

google crome helper
google crome helper

Just like the Marvel villain Galactus who regularly feeds on living, inhabited planets for energy, a ‘tool’ by the name of Google Chrome Helper regularly feeds on your computer’s RAM and leaves less for you to use, slowing your systems down and leaving you a very frustrated end user. All users of Google Chrome, a fantastic web browser otherwise, have been on the receiving end of the wrath of Google Chrome Helper. It chomps away at your system memory and CPU cycles with a voracious appetite as your system heats up with a fever and the cooling fans scream in agony as the heat ends up being too much for them to handle. If left unchecked for long, it can even bring your system to a screeching halt.

What is Google Chrome Helper in my activity monitor?

The Google Chrome Helper is a confusing ghost in your machine. Even the Chrome Help Center is clueless about the origins and purpose of the Google Chrome Helper. Chrome user forums are filled with complaints, and hardly any solutions. Even the Chrome FAQ has no answer for this (very) frequently asked question, ‘what is this Google Chrome Helper and why is it making my life miserable?’ if you are one those people whose lives have been considerably worsened by this RAM eating menace, don’t worry, this post will be your deliverance from the evil that is the Google Chrome Helper.

What is Google Chrome Helper?

Straight up, the Google Chrome Helper isn’t actually a problem by itself. It goes on a RAM feeding frenzy whenever a rogue extension is installed on Google Chrome or ‘run everything by default’ becomes the plug-in setting configuration. The biggest victims of Google Chrome Helper’s feeding frenzy are situations when the Chrome browser works with Flash content.

Why is Google Chrome Helper running?

All of the embedded content that runs outside your Google Chrome browser, falls under the generic umbrella term of ‘Google Chrome Helper’. Since HTML codes don’t render your browser’s plug-ins, they use content which has been pulled from an external source.

What does Google Chrome Helper do?

The dastardly Google Chrome Helper forms the interface between the remote source and the browser’s embed codes. Because APIs don’t allow many plug-ins and processes to be listed by name, they are all clubbed under the moniker of Google Chrome Helper.

Why is Google Chrome Helper using so much CPU?

The high CPU usage by Google Chrome could be caused by some malicious extension or plug-in installed in the browser. Such bogus extensions are usually designed to eat up your CPU’s memory.

How to disable/stop/turn off Google Chrome Helper?

Preventing the Google Chrome Helper from ‘helping’ isn’t that difficult. What’s more, it won’t even prevent you from using plug-ins on your browser. Just go case-by-case as far as viewing plug-in content in concerned. To deactivate Google Chrome Helper, you will need to dig through a few levels of Google Chrome settings. Luckily, we are here to help you stop the Google Chrome Helper from ‘helping’.

Start by shutting all your Google Chrome windows and tabs down. However, don’t quit the program in the process. Open ‘Preferences’ in the Google Chrome menu and select ‘Show Advanced Settings’. Upon clicking that, you have to select ‘Privacy’ and then ‘Content Settings’. In that list, select ‘Plug Ins’. After that, select ‘Click to play’. 

In essence, this process of disabling the Google Chrome Helper is not very different from setting up your email inbox to only display images or other kinds of media only after you click on the ‘load images’ option. All kinds of embedded content such as Quicktime, Flash, Java etc., appears in the form of a greyed out space unless you specifically click on the link to load the content. Getting rid of the Google Chrome Helper also helps you get rid of auto-loading Flash ads without equipping your browser with an ad block plug-in.

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