Chrome seems to tank my Air's performance. Any solutions? I have a 2011 MacBook Air with 4gb RAM, 128 SD hardrive and Intel Core i5.

For years it ran great. I code for web so never needed anything super powerful, other than the ability to keep several Chrome tabs open.

However, 2 years ago it started to become so slow when using Chrome I gave up on the laptop and shelved it. There would be massive delays in text inputs, scrolling, images loading, switching between tabs or desktops, etc. Not just with Chrome but with the OS (Lion) as well.

Recently I decided I needed a laptop again and dug the Air out of storage (I thought about getting a new Air, but they new ones are virtually the same but with 8GB ram. Thought I would at least try to resurrect my old Air first). I took the Air to the Apple Store and wiped the HD and updated to the latest version of High Sierra (10.13.4).

First thing I did after the install was install Chrome... and exactly the same issues started again.

Anyone know what I could do to fix this? Is it a lost cause? Hardware issue?

Any advice is appreciated. Cheers!
Based on your question, I assume you're not experiencing problems when using Safari or Firefox (although you don't specify whether you use them or not).

Assuming that's the case, the first thing I'd try is turning off hardware acceleration in Google Chrome. To do this, follow these steps:


Launch Google Chrome
Go to Chrome > Preferences (or just press the command, keyboard shortcut
At the bottom of the page, click on Show advanced settings...
Look for the System subheading in the new settings that appear
Uncheck the Use hardware acceleration when available option
Restart Google Chrome