How to speed up your downloads in Chrome
How to speed up your downloads on Chrome
Want faster downloads? Don’t want to install any 3rd party or unnecessary plugins? We hear you. Follow this simple tip to enhance your Chrome downloads. We managed to speed up our Chrome downloads by more than 200% with this simple tweak. We also recorded a before and after to show you the results of this optimization.
Table of Contents
What is Parallel Downloading?
Parallel downloading allows the browser to divide a large file into multiple smaller parts and to download all of them simultaneously. A simple analogy is that instead of having 1 train to deliver a crate of food, you now have 4 trains simultaneously delivering 4x crates of food at the same time. This allows your download (or food, in the train’s context) to arrive faster to your browser.
Do note this technique is also dependent on the target server you are attempting to download the files from, as there may be settings that may enhance or even disable parallel downloads completely.
Access Chrome settings
Type in your browser address bar, chrome://flags/#enable-parallel-downloading
Enable Parallel Downloading
Save and relaunch Chrome
Relaunch your Chrome to enjoy the upgraded download speed
Our before and after testing
Our test environment. Note, we opted to use a geographically more distant server as a slower download speed would make it more apparent to notice the differences in speed.
| Browser | Chrome Version 107 |
| Internet Service Provider | M1 500Mbps |
| Test File | DigitalOcean France 100MB Speedtest File |
| Average Ping to DigitalOcean France Server over 10 minutes | 160MS |
| Time Test Conducted | Tuesday, 8th November 2022 12.20PM UTC Time |
Before Optimization
| Time taken to download 100MB file | 22 seconds |
| Average speed | 4.54MB/s |
After Parallel Downloads Enabled
| Time taken to download 100MB file | 7 seconds |
| Average speed | 14.29MB/s |
We recorded over a 214.76% increase in speed with parallel downloads enabled!
WARNING: Please note that parallel download is an experimental feature. By enabling it, you could lose browser data or compromise your security or privacy. Enabled features apply to all users of this browser.
