HACKER Q&A
📣 peterburkimsher

Stop Repeated App Opening


Double-clicking Chrome opens a new Windows process. The homestay family kids I live with won't wait for Chrome to open after one double-click, but keep on clicking until it comes up. There's 15 processes in the taskbar now, all saying "New Tab" except the frontmost. These background processes waste RAM and clutter the taskbar. Other apps (e.g. Worms Armageddon) show a loading screen, so this isn't a problem.

Is there a tool for Windows (7 and/or XP) to stop repeated app opening? Could this be implemented as a browser extension, or should it be a background process monitor?

If it doesn't already exist, I could build it, but I'd like to know if other people have this problem, and how best to tell people about a solution.

  👤 naniwaduni Accepted Answer ✓
Out-of-the-box thought: wouldn't it be easier to artificially introduce a 5-second delay before their games (presumably even more memory-heavy than a browser with one empty tab) start until they realize that spam-clicking makes things worse?
👤 numpad0
Duplicate tabs closer addon if it’s just Chrome or Firefox?