Photoshop was originally a tool for improving photos or fixing mistakes in them that couldn’t be corrected when a photo was actually taken. It’s a powerful bit of software so it shouldn’t surprise anyone if it’s used for more than just its intended use. Of course, no one could imagine it would be popular with Instagram users. If you happen to come across an image that you suspect is Photoshopped, and you can’t tell just by looking, there’s still a chance you will find a Photoshop footprint in the EXIF data. Here’s how to look for it.
Photoshop footprint in EXIF data
There’s no shortage of tools for viewing EXIF data. You can find web apps, desktop apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and mobile apps that do the job. The results may vary in that some apps may not display all the data that is stored in an image.
For this specific purpose, i.e., to find the Photoshop footprint in EXIF data, you can use a web app called Exifdata.
Visit the web app and upload the photo you want to check for the Photoshop footprint. The image should not be larger than 20MB. Once uploaded, the app will reveal the EXIF data that it’s found.
Under ‘XMP Toolkit’ and ‘Creator Tool’ look for anything related to Adobe and any mention of Photoshop. In the screenshot above, Exifdata not only indicates that the image has been passed through Photoshop (notice the very obvious brush stroke on the image), but also that it was edited on a Windows system.
Is EXIF data wrong?
Technically, EXIF data can be removed from an image and it can be edited. There are quite a few EXIF data editors available for free use. Additionally, someone editing an image in Photoshop may have the foresight to remove or prevent this information from being added to an image in the first place. Last, if the image you’re checking was downloaded from a web service e.g., a social media website, it is possible that the website removed some of the data when the original uploaded added it.
If you do need to investigate an image, the EXIF data is a good place to start for two reasons; it can be independently verified by anyone, and it’s quick. On this same note, remember to not use this method maliciously. You might want to use it to verify if a photo of a UFO landing is real or not, but using it on someone’s vacation photos to prove they’re not real is a bit much.
Xbox is a popular gaming platform and Xbox live is a service that you can’t really avoid. It’s owned by Microsoft so even if you don’t play games on an Xbox, you can’t really escape it though Xbox live may not be as unavoidable on a PC. Xbox live may be a great service but like all services, it’s prone to technical problems where it may go offline. If you’re unable to sign into Xbox, or are having other problems with the service, it might be because Xbox Live is down. Here’s how you can check.
Xbox Live – down or not
Since Xbox and its services are a Microsoft property, you can imagine how slow a response there normally is and when there’s a response, it normally only acknowledges a problem with the service without giving you too many details. If you need to keep a close eye on the service, consider using a website called DownDetector.
There’s no shortage of monitoring services for Xbox but DownDetector offers you a live coverage map which, in case of regional and/or intermittent outages, is more useful. The web service lets you view a history of outages and it also has apps for Android and iOS, and an Alexa skill.
By default, it will tell you if there’s currently an issue with Xbox but if you want to see a live coverage map, click the little thumbnail next to the 24 hour graph depicting outages and how extensive it is.
The indicated areas have problems with Xbox live. You can use the zoom in controls to zoom into parts of a map and see if your particular area is also affected.
Often, the outages can take a long time to actually show up and be acknowledge however, if it’s a global outage you can expect a quicker response from Microsoft. Regardless of how quickly an outage is acknowledged, it is nevertheless fixed as fastest possible. The Xbox is an exceptionally popular platform and Microsoft pushes it onto its users even if they’re using a PC so it’s highly unlikely that resolving an outage will take too long.
If you’re having problems with Xbox live, and there are no detected outages in your area, you might need to troubleshoot your device as well as your internet connection. It’s also a good idea to make sure access to the service hasn’t been blocked on a router level. ISPs aren’t going to block access to the service but other users who can access your router might have made the change for whatever reason.
Mozilla Firefox is an excellent open-source web browser, perhaps one of the best tools on the entire Linux platform. Still, the Firefox browser is adding more and more features, and these new additions aren’t for everyone. If you’re looking for an open-source alternative to Firefox on Linux, we’ve got you covered. Here are 5 open-source Firefox alternatives for Linux users.
1. Otter Browser
The Otter Browser is a web browser project that aims to keep the old Opera project alive. It is open-source and supports a lot of the old features that everyone loved about Opera 12.x, including notes, a stellar bookmark manager, and much more.
Overall, Otter isn’t quite as impressive as something like Firefox, as it’s a smaller project. However, if you’re looking for a competitive open browser, do check it out!
Notable Features – Otter Browser
The Otter Browser is a new project, and long ago users looking to test it out had to download an AppImage. Well, this is no longer the case as now most Linux distros are carrying it in their software repositories.
To get Otter, check out Pkgs.org, and look through the list of packages for one that works on your operating system. Or, check out our guide on how to install Otter on Linux.
Download
Built-in password manager to securely remember website passwords.
Integrated advertisement blocker to filter out unwanted ads and content.
One of the biggest issues with the current iteration of Firefox is that it can run heavy on computers with modest hardware specs. Performance in Firefox is a huge problem, and the developers are aware of it and try to improve it with every release, but for some people, these improvements are not enough.
If you’re sick of how heavy Firefox is on your Linux PC, you’ll be happy to learn of the Midori Browser. It’s a light, open-source browser with minimalist design to ensure you use as little resources as possible.
Notable Features – Midori Browser
Built-in advertisement blocker filters out unwanted content from web pages.
Form history feature remembers previously entered forms to speed up the process of filling out forms in the future.
Support for private browsing.
Download
Midori is a go-to when it comes to lightweight browsers on Linux, so it’s no surprise that the app is widely available to most modern Linux distributions via software repository. To install the application on your Linux system, search for “Midori” in your software installer. Alternatively, check out our guide on how to install Midori on Linux.
3. Brave
The Mozilla foundation tries its best to respect user privacy with Firefox. For the most part, they do a good job with privacy. However, sometimes they make questionable choices with the Firefox browser that could be considered an invasion of privacy.
Introducing the Brave browser, an alternative web browser to Mozilla Firefox that works very hard to protect user privacy, by including several anti-tracking tools, a built-in online advertisement blocker. Better yet, it’s much more light-weight than Firefox and uses much fewer resources.
Notable Features – Brave
Deep privacy features fully protect users from predatory websites, malware, and unwanted website advertisements.
Website support system allows users to pay for the websites they visit while still blocking advertisements.
The Brave mobile app syncs with the desktop and offers the same privacy protection features.
Download
There are many ways to install the Brave web browser on Linux. By far, the quickest and easiest way to get your hands on it though is through the Snap store. The reason? It’s just a command away, and Snaps run on just about everything. For more information on how to get the Brave Snap working on your Linux PC, check out our guide on the subject.
4. Falkon
Falkon is an open-source, community-driven web browser for Linux. Underneath the hood, it’s using the Chromium browser core and supports various plugins (such as built-in advertisement blocking). Falkon is the official KDE browser of choice, so you’ll find it on almost any KDE-based Linux distribution.
There are quite a few KDE-centric web browsers on the Linux platform. However, a lot of them don’t look great. Falkon, on the other hand, looks great, runs fast. So, if you love KDE and want to ditch Firefox, do yourself a favor and try it out!
Notable Features – Falkon
Built-in screenshot feature makes it easy to take pictures of your favorite websites.
Integrated advertisement blocking feature makes websites easier to navigate and protects user privacy.
Robust RSS page makes it easy to keep up with updates from your favorite websites.
Download
Falkon is usually the default web browser on KDE-centric Linux distributions. Even if the operating system has Firefox set up, it’ll also have Falkon set up alongside it. Still, if your Linux OS does not have Falkon by default, you’ll be able to install it by searching for “Falkon” in your distribution’s package manager.
Unable to find Falkon for your Linux PC? Check out Pkgs.org, as they have installation instructions and downloadable package files for every major Linux distribution.
5. Chromium
The Chromium web browser is an open-source alternative to Google Chrome. It sports an identical interface to Chrome, but all of the proprietary technology that makes up Chrome is absent.
Chromium isn’t perfect, and many in the Linux community have pointed out that even if it’s open-source, it still has some problematic code that talks to Google. However, it’s a strong contender to Firefox, as it offers up a lot of the same modern browser comforts that Mozilla does (extensions, support for proprietary video playback, etc.) and modern web rendering technologies.
Notable Features – Chromium
Syncs with Google services, including Google Passwords, bookmarks, and more.
Chromium users can install Google Chrome extensions, even though it’s not technically Chrome.
Supports loading of proprietary video content to watch content on websites such as Netflix, Hulu, and others.
Download
The Chromium web browser is everywhere on Linux, as it’s often seen by many as one of the better alternatives to Firefox. Sometimes, Chromium is even included as the default web browser on Linux distributions.
Getting the Chromium web browser is simple, thanks to how popular it is. To install it, open up a terminal window, search for “Chromium” and install it the way software is typically installed on your Linux PC. Or check out our in-depth tutorial on how to get the browser going.
Conclusion
There are many excellent, open-source web browsers available to Linux users. Unfortunately, Firefox overshadows all of them. Hopefully, this list will show that there’s more than just Firefox available in the open-source browser space on Linux.
macOS has a pretty good full screen mode for apps. If you’re trying to work without any distractions, you should switch over to full screen mode and you’re bound to get more done. What many users may not know is that on macOS, the full screen mode can be split between two apps. You can pin apps side by side in full screen mode and easily work with both of them. Here’s how.
Pin apps in full screen
Open the two apps that you want to pin side by side. Make sure that you can see the window for both apps. Neither one of them should be minimized.
Click and hold on the full screen i.e., the green button until you see an outline that shows the app will be pinned to the left of your screen. Once you see this outline, release the green button you’re click-holding on.
The app will be pinned to the left of your screen in full screen mode and you will see all the other apps that are open on the right. Select the one you want to pin in full screen with the other app.
Once the apps are pinned side by side, the traffic light buttons will disappear and you will be in full screen mode. There’s a thick divider that separates the two apps and if you click and drag it in either direction, you can change how the screen is split between the two apps.
By default, the apps are both given one half of the screen.
The slider allows you to change it so that one app can take up more space while taking space away from the second app.
Exiting full screen
If you want to exit full screen, you need to first understand that you have two apps that are currently in full screen mode. Move your mouse cursor to the top of the screen and wait for the traffic light buttons to appear for one of the apps. Click the green button and you will have exited that particular app from full screen. The other app is still in full screen mode so switch over to it and click the green button to return it to normal viewing mode.
This feature is great and it’s a shame it only works with two apps. If you have a large external display, or an iMac, you might have enough screen area to pin three apps side by side.
It’s excellent that the Spotify music service supports Linux with Snap, Flatpak, and Ubuntu applications, but overall, the app is cumbersome and doesn’t work well on Linux PCs with minimal resources. That’s why Librespot has come on to the scene so that users can listen to Spotify from the Linux terminal.
Install Librespot
Installing Librespot requires installing several build-time dependencies. So, before we can deal with the source code, it’s vital to go over how to get everything needed to compile.
Dependencies for Linux distributions differ slightly, so things may not work 100% of the time. For more guidance on what dependencies you’ll need, check out the developer’s GitHub page.
Debian/Ubuntu
On Debian and Ubuntu, users must install the “build-essential” package, the Rust programming language and the “libasound2-dev” package. You will also need Git to interact with the source code.
Fedora users will need to install the ” alsa-lib-devel” package, the “make” package, the “gcc” package and the Rust programming language. You’ll also need to install Git to interact with GitHub.
sudo dnf install alsa-lib-devel cargo make gcc rust git -y
Arch Linux
There are quite a few dependencies to install on Arch Linux to build Librespot. However, lucky for you, the entire program is inside of the Arch Linux AUR, so no effort is necessary. Just follow the commands below to install the dependencies, as well as Librespot on Arch.
First, install the Git and Base-devel packages on Arch Linux with Pacman.
sudo pacman -S git base-devel
Clone the AUR package build of Trizen, to make installing Librespot much quicker.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/trizen.git
Move the terminal into the “trizen” folder and build it with makepkg.
cd trizen
makepkg -sri
Use Trizen to install Librespot.
trizen -S librespot-git
Build the software
With all of the dependencies taken care of, clone the source code to your Linux PC using the git clone command.
Move the terminal window into the “librespot” folder with the CD command.
cd librespot
You’ll then be able to build Librespot with the cargo command.
cargo build --release
Once the program is done building, move the built files from the source code folder into a new location in the “opt” directory, using the commands below.
cd librespot/target/release/ mkdir -p /opt/librespot/ sudo mv * /opt/librespot/
Using touch, create a new script to run the software easily.
You can then start up the Librespot application from your terminal window with:
librespot
Using Librespot
LibreSpot isn’t a terminal app in the sense that it has a full text-based user-interface to use. However, it does work with Spotify connect, so, if your Linux PC can’t handle the amount of RAM that the official Spotify client needs, this is the best alternative, by far.
To use the Librespot application, start by taking out a smartphone and install the Spotify app on it. Once the app is set up, log into your Spotify account. Then, follow the step-by-step instructions below to learn how to play music through Librespot.
Step 1: Go to the Spotify app on your smartphone and tap the search button to find an artist, playlist, album or song to listen to, and tap on it to tell the Spotify application on your smartphone to start playing it.
Step 2: Open up the playback window on the bottom to make it full-screen on your smartphone.
Step 3: Pause the music in the app to stop it from playing, but don’t close the playback window.
Step 4: Look to the bottom left portion of the Spotify app’s playback window for a white icon, and tap it with your finger to bring up the “Spotify Connect” pop-up window. If you can’t find the icon, it looks like a Smartphone/TV logo.
Step 5: After tapping on the Spotify Connect icon, a new window will appear on your smartphone. This window says “Connect to a device,” and will list off your Spotify Connect-enabled devices.
Step 6: Inside of the “Connect to a device” window, tap on the device labeled “Librespot.”
Step 7: Press the play button on the music you previously paused to listen to Spotify through the Linux terminal on your PC!
Windows 10 has four different projection modes that work with secondary monitors or TVs connected to your PC. To change the projection mode, you can tap the Win+P keyboard shortcut to open the Project panel and you can select whether you want to use both screens, a single screen, or duplicate your screens. If you find yourself visiting this panel often, you can change the Windows 10 projection mode with a keyboard shortcut. Here’s how to set it up.
Change Windows 10 projection mode
There are several different ways to create this shortcut however, we’re going to go with possibly the easiest one. Open File Explorer and navigate to the following location.
C:\Windows\System32
Look for an app called DisplaySwitch.exe. Right-click it and select Send to> Desktop (create shortcut). Go to the desktop and right-click the newly created shortcut to DisplaySwitch.exe, and select ‘Properties’ from the context menu.
The first thing you have to do is make a change in the Target field. The change depends on the projection mode you want to use. Add a space at the end of the path in the Target field and enter one of the following.
For Duplicate mode: /clone
For Extend mode: /extend
For PC screen only mode: /internal
For second screen only mode: /external
You can only use one switch with one shortcut so if you want to use it for different projection modes, you’ll need to create more than one shortcut.
After you change the target field, you have to set a keyboard shortcut for it. On the same General tab on the Properties window, you will see a Shortcut key field. Click inside it and tap a letter or number key. It will be executed with the Ctrl+Alt keys. The shortcut will let you change the projection mode.
The Project side panel will still open and in some cases, it might take a second or two for the mode to switch but it will work. As for the Project panel, if you’re looking for a way to do this silently/in the background without it opening, there isn’t one. This is simple and it works.
We should mention that you will have to keep the shortcut on your desktop. You cannot move it to a different drive. To keep everything tidy, create a folder on the desktop and move the shortcut(s) to it. The keyboard shortcut will still work in this scenario. As for the Ctrl and Alt keys, there’s no avoiding them. They’re added automatically.
The trackpad on Macbooks is really great. You’d be hard put to find a trackpad as good on PC models but Apple also has a great mouse that a lot of people love to use even if they have a Macbook. Macbooks aren’t restricted to working with just Apple’s own mouse. You can connect any mouse with it if you prefer a different make and model. Normally, when you connect a mouse to a Macbook, the trackpad continues to work. If this is a problem, you can disable the trackpad when a mouse is connected.
Disable trackpad when using mouse
You won’t find this setting under the Mouse or Trackpad preference. Instead, what you need to do is go to the Accessibility preference in the System Preferences app.
Under Accessibility, scroll through the column on the left and look for Mouse & Trackpad. Select it and you will see an option on the right called ‘Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present’. Enable it and when you connect either a mouse or an external trackpad, the built-in trackpad on your Macbook will not work.
This works if you’re using a wireless mouse like the Apple mouse or you’re using one that requires you connect it via a dongle. A mouse like that is normally used with Windows systems but that doesn’t mean it won’t work with a Macbook.
Any time you disconnect a mouse, whether it’s by disconnecting the dongle for it, or disconnecting or unpairing it, the trackpad will automatically start working again. This setting, while meant for ease of access, is useful if you often accidentally end up grazing the trackpad on your Macbook when you don’t intend to use it.
Keyboard
This setting doesn’t apply to the keyboard and nothing like it exists if you use an external keyboard with your Macbook. You’re free to connect either Apple’s keyboard with a Macbook but the keyboard on it will continue to work.
If you need something similar for the keyboard, give the app Karabiner a try. It’s kind of complex but that has to do with the fact that it does a lot however, if you take the time to read the app’s documentation, you’ll find you can use it to disable the internal keyboard when an external one is connected to your Macbook. All you need to do is connect the external keyboard that you want to use, launch the app, and go to the Devices tab. There, select which device you want to disconnect when the other is connected.
There’s a similar setting on Windows 10 if you need it.
There are many folders on your Windows drive that you cannot access and/or delete. These are normally system folders and deleting them or modifying them could break the OS. Some of these folders can be deleted without damaging the OS but due to their nature, they’re protected. The WindowsApps folder is one such folder.
WindowsApps folder
The WindowsApps folder is where UWP apps are installed. UWP apps can be installed or moved to any drive on your system. What this means is that if you’ve ever installed an app to a non-Windows drive, it will have the WindowsApps folder. As such, if you want to delete the WindowsApps folder from a drive, you have to make sure that there is no UWP app installed to the drive the folder is on.
Delete/move apps
Before we show you how you can delete the WindowsApps folder, you need to first make sure there are no apps installed to the drive it’s on. Checking which apps are installed on a drive is incredibly easy.
Open the Settings app and go to the Apps group of settings. On the Apps & features tab, scroll down to the list of installed apps. Open the Filter by dropdown and select the drive with the WindowsApps folder that you want to delete.
Look through the list and move the apps you want to keep to a different drive. Delete the ones you don’t want to use. The list will be a mix of UWP apps and desktop apps. The desktop apps do not need to be removed. They do not install to the WindowsApps folder.
Change WindowsApps folder permission
You’re going to need admin rights for this. Navigate to the root of the drive with the WindowsApps folder. Right-click it and select Properties from the context menu. Go to the Security tab and click ‘Advanced’.
On the next window that opens, click the Change option next to the Owner.
Another window will open where you can enter a new owner for the folder. In the box at the bottom, enter your admin user name and then click the Check Name button. Once the name is verified, click OK, and then Apply.
Delete the WindowsApps folder
After you’ve changed the permissions, go ahead and select the WindowsApps folder, and the Delete key on your keyboard. You will be prompted to allow the change as an admin user but once you give it admin permission, the folder will be deleted.
If you ever install or move a UWP app to the same drive again, this folder will be recreated. It won’t have any data left over from the previous version that you deleted.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat is an excellent open world game that takes place in Ukraine, around Chernobyl. It’s the third entry in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series and is a cult classic for gamers that love post-apocalyptic adventures. Upon release, Call of Pripyat only ran on Windows. However, thanks to the new OpenXRay tool, Linux users can enjoy this game as well!
Getting Call of Pripyat working requires a legal copy of the game. There are a few ways to purchase it. For best results, grab the GOG.com release of the game, as it doesn’t come wrapped up in DRM, and will give you full access to the files.
Once you’ve bought the game, download it to your Linux PC and follow along to learn how to get it working!
Before we begin
Before we talk about how to get the game working on Linux with the OpenXRay engine, it’s important to point out that this code is in its early days and under heavy development. You may run into issues getting the game to run with this tool, due to the complexity of supporting different Linux distributions, and unpatched bugs.
If you run into any problems with the code during this guide, feel free to check out the issue page and tell the developers so they may help mitigate the issues.
Install Call of Pripyat
The game needs to be installed on your Linux PC before the OpenXRay binaries, source code or anything else is fiddled with. To install the Windows version of Call of Pripyat, you must install Wine.
Installing Wine is a pretty easy process that we’ve covered pretty extensively on Addictivetips in the past. For best results with Call of Pripyat on Linux, we highly recommend going with Wine 4, as it has great updates that aid gamers on Linux.
Once you’ve gotten Wine up and running, download the GOG release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat to your Linux PC. Then, open up a terminal window. Having access to the command-line is critical during this process so that we can detect any errors with Wine during the installation. It’s also much easier to run EXEs this way.
Using the terminal window, CD into the ~/Downloads folder where the Pripyat game EXE file is.
cd ~/Downloads
In the Downloads folder, run the ls command, so that you can reveal the exact file name of the installer.
ls
Then, take note of the installer’s name and plug it into the wine command, to start up the installer. In the command below, replace stalker-call-of-pripyat.exe with the actual name of the EXE file in your download directory.
wine stalker-call-of-pripyat.exe
Running the wine command will instantly bring up the GOG Gui installer. Follow the instructions and learn how to get everything installed on your Linux PC.
When the GOG installer is done, there’s one last thing to do. We need to rename the default folder name that GOG gives CoP and change it to a more command-line friendly name. To do this, CD into the ‘GoG’ folder.
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/GOG\ \Games
Rename the directory from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat to Stalker-CoP with the mv command.
mv 'S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat' Stalker-CoP
Dependencies for OpenXray
The OpenXray engine requires several build dependencies to compile the code successfully. To install these build dependencies, open up a terminal and follow the instructions that correspond to the Linux OS you use.
The OpenXRay game engine is on GitHub. To get it, you’ll need to download everything using the git clone command. In the terminal, use Git to clone the latest source code.
After grabbing the source code, make a new build directory with mkdir.
cd xray-16 mkdir bin
Move into the build directory with CD and call cmake and make to compile the code.
cd bin cmake .. make -j$(nproc)
Finally, finish up the installation process by creating a new Linux bin directory in the Game’s folder and use make to install the built code into your copy of Stalker CoP.
mkdir -p ~/.wine/drive_c/GOG\ \Games/Stalker-CoP
make -j$(nproc) DESTDIR=~/.wine/drive_c/GOG\ \Games/Stalker-CoP install
Running the game on Linux
The binaries are built for Linux, but to run Stalker CoP on your PC, we need to modify a file. To start, CD into the game directory and delete the existing “fsgame.ltx” file.
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/GOG\ \Games/Stalker-CoP
rm fsgame.ltx
Next, copy the newly created fsgame.ltx file into the Stalker CoP directory.
With the files in place, you can run the game with:
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/GOG\ \Games/Stalker-CoP/bin-linux
./xr_3da.sh -fsltx ../fsgame.ltx
Other ways to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat on Linux
OpenXRay is an interesting project and it’s helping more and more Linux users enjoy Call of Pripyat, but it’s not the only way to play this game on the platform.
If you’ve tried out OpenXRay and found it lacking, or ran into some issues, you’ll be happy to know that it’s possible to run the GoG version of the game you installed with Wine directly. It also works well with Steam Play.
Adding more RAM to a system is no way to keep it running smoothly. You should have a reasonable amount of RAM on your system that matches your needs. A gaming PC will need more RAM whereas one used for routine office tasks or academic work can run with a nominal amount of RAM. Having a lot of RAM doesn’t mean that there will always be some to spare. When apps know there is free RAM, they use it though all of it is rarely used. If your system is running much slower than it should and you suspect something is using too much RAM, there’s a fairly easy way to check this.
Before you check which apps are using the most RAM, it’s a good idea to take a look at what you’re using your system for. If you’ve recently installed a new app, check what its RAM requirements are. If it needs quite a bit of RAM, the increased usage is normal. On that same note, check all the apps that you normally use and look up how much RAM they normally need to use.
Apps using most RAM
Open Task Manager and on the Processes tab, look for the Memory column. This column reports RAM usage.
The numbers reported may not look like there’s a lot of RAM being consumed but that may be because the items on the Processes tab are not sorted by RAM usage. To sort them, click the title of the Memory column and the items will be sorted by memory usage.
What now?
Now that you’ve identified which apps are using the most RAM, you might want to know what your options are.
The first thing you should do is make sure nothing unusual is running on your system and consuming too much RAM. An anti-virus app or Chrome are likely to use quite a bit of RAM but if there’s something you don’t recognize, look up what it is. If it shouldn’t be running, quit it and remove it from your system if it doesn’t effect your workflow. You can install a light-weight app to keep an eye on RAM usage and whenever it spikes, check the apps that are running.
The second thing you should do is check if the apps with high RAM usage are using an expected amount of RAM. Check the app’s requirements and see if the consumption matches. If it doesn’t, there might be something causing the app to use more RAM and you will have to investigate it.
If everything looks fine, but your system is too slow to use, you can limit the number of apps you’re running when you run a particularly resource heavy app. It’s hardly an ideal situation, especially if you multi-task, but it should help.
Last, if you want your system to run faster, consider replacing your HDD with an SSD. The impact it has on a system’s performance cannot be overstated. It’s about as good as adding more RAM (though definitely not the same thing).
Next Generation Portal Hi-tech, android, iOS, Mac OS, linux, windows, games, security
