The Extension Security Boundary
Google Chrome utilizes a highly sophisticated, multi-process architecture to ensure stability and security. A core component of this is “Site Isolation,” which forces different websites to run in entirely separate operating system processes, preventing malicious code on one site from reading memory belonging to another. “Strict Extension Isolation” is an experimental flag that takes this concept a step further by enforcing these same rigid process boundaries on Chrome browser extensions.
When enabled, Strict Extension Isolation ensures that background scripts belonging to extensions are fiercely sandboxed, preventing them from inadvertently (or maliciously) sharing memory space with the web pages they are modifying or with other installed extensions. While this provides an incredibly high level of security, it also consumes significantly more RAM because Chrome must spawn dozens of tiny, isolated processes for every active extension. Furthermore, poorly coded or legacy extensions that rely on older, cross-process communication methods may instantly crash or fail to function when subjected to strict isolation. If your browser is freezing due to memory exhaustion, or a critical extension has stopped working, disabling this strict security boundary can restore functionality.
How to Turn Off Strict Extension Isolation
You can relax Chrome’s internal memory sandboxing for extensions via the experimental flags menu.
- Open Google Chrome.
- Click inside the main address bar at the top of the window.
- Type
chrome://flagsand press Enter. - On the “Experiments” page, use the search bar to look for Strict Extension Isolation.
- If the flag is available, click the dropdown menu next to it and change it from “Default” to Disabled.
- Click the blue Relaunch button at the bottom of the screen.
Upon restarting, Chrome will revert to its standard memory management profile for extensions, reducing overall RAM usage at the slight expense of theoretical maximum security.