Hey everyone. Short post with a practical fix for a problem many of us have been seeing for months.
The problem (short)
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After long conversations (hundreds of turns, big token counts), the ChatGPT web UI becomes painfully slow: typing hangs, scrolling stutters, responses take forever.
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Root cause: the frontend keeps the entire conversation tree in the DOM (visible and hidden nodes). That DOM churn (reflows, event handlers, retained memory) causes the browser to slow down — even though the model/server only needs a much smaller active context.
What I built
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I made a small local-only Chrome extension called ChatGPT LightSession.
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It trims the hidden DOM nodes the web UI accumulates while preserving the active conversation path the model needs. No backend, no API keys, no tracking, everything runs locally in your browser.
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Result: huge drop in RAM/CPU usage and much faster typing/scrolling on long threads. For many users it completely removes the “waiting / blank screen” pain.
How to try it
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Search for “ChatGPT LightSession” on the Chrome Web Store (v1.0.1 is live). Install, refresh chat.openai.com or chatgpt.com, and try a long conversation.
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The extension is intentionally local-only and it doesn’t send your data anywhere.
Open source & next steps
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I plan to open-source the repo and publish the code in the coming weeks (cleaning up docs + packaging the repo first). I’ll post the link here when it’s ready.
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I’m also working on an experimental sidebar mode to browse past exchanges locally without re-introducing the performance hit.
Why I built this
- I wasted hours waiting for long chats to become responsive again. The frustration from that UX problem is what pushed me to build a fix. If it helps even a small percentage of folks here, it’s worth it.
Community feedback so far
- Many people on Reddit have tried it and left positive comments, several report it has made ChatGPT usable again for long sessions.
If you try it: please leave feedback here (what OS/browser/version, rough length of your conversation when you saw lag, and whether it helped). If you’re a frontend/dev and want to help design the sidebar / UX or review the repo once it’s public, DM me and I’ll send details.
Thanks and hoping this helps people who do long research/code/writing sessions in ChatGPT.
