⚠️ With the introduction of Chrome Memory Saver this extension is somewhat redundant and I decided to archive it.
This is a minimal extension for Chromium browsers using Manist v3. I created it because I wanted an extension to reduce my browser RAM usage. I didn't want to install an extension that would auto-update and bring all sorts of shenanigans (spam, monitoring, ads, etc.). So, I created this extension and decided to share it in case someone is looking for something similar.
This extension is for developers and people who can understand its code as all settings are embedded in the first lines of the background.js file.
Download the code and unzip it.
Adjust the values for discardAfterMinutes and doNotDiscard in the background.js file.
Type chrome://extensions in your browser (or go to Settings->Extensions) and enable Developer Mode.
Then click Load Unpacked and point to the folder where you stored the code.
You may also set log or debug true in the background.js file to see what the extension is doing. To get the console log after installation, click Details->Service Worker. You can also go to chrome://discards to see the tabs that have been discarded/unloaded.