Learn how you can tweak your Firefox application to consume less memory and work little faster.
I’m crazy about this browser right from the day of release. Firefox bought me in a change of browsing style. I really love this tool. But only concern I’ve about Firefox is its memory usage. Hope this would be the concern for other users as well as the Firefox developers. It sucks most of the memory space. I’d say Firefox is memory ravenous compared with IE.
Firefox has lot of memory leaks and that has been fixed the most in the latest release. Anyway that’s not our part Mozilla developers will take of that ïŠ If you think you can contribute better then join their team. Visit Mozilla today to find out more ways to contribute.
Now let’s optimize Firefox to use less memory and to work faster. This is the smarter way too.
Type about:config in the address bar.
- Create a new Boolean entry config.trim_on_minimize and set it to true (This one works gr8 when ever you reduce the FireFox window. It almost saves 20 MB – 30 MB+)
- Set browser.cache.memory.capacity to a fixed size (the default values are: for 256 MB RAM – 14336, 512 MB RAM – 22528, 1 GB RAM – 32768). This is free 22MB max.
- Set browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers to 0. It can reduce around 20 MB of usage
- Change image.animation_mode to none. It has little impact on performance.
Now go to Tools/Options.
- Set the disk cache memory to a low value (less than 50 MB).
- Turn off Java (If you really don’t use it).
- Try to avoid memory hungry extension. If you decide to use some; don’t use more that 5.
- Clear the download history now and then. Don’t let the list to accumulate. This will have impact on the performance.
Using these tips, I was able to reduce around 40 – 50 MB of memory usage. So why to wait try it today. Happy Browsing.
Nice article,
I’ve been looking for a way to free-up some of the memory firefox uses, and your tips worked perfectly.
Conor
worked for me!
This saved me 20 meg!
–CrashDaddy
Half the memory thanks..
Right click on the about:config webpage should do it cgh
would love to reduce the memory, but I am stumbling at the first hurdle – can’t work out how to create a boolean entry.
any advice?
Cheers
Colin
Benedict,
I had been meaning to do something like this and you tips prompted me to do it and, I might say, with better results than what I had in mind.
Thanks so much!
Hope all you guys freed up some memory at last.>!!! i will keep all posted on other ways of optimizing memory as well..!!
Thank you so much!!
Firefox was using 40M right after starting up. Now it’s at 13M!
Hey, it worked for me, I didn’t really expected it to work.
But the best tip for me would be: “close unused tabs” 😉
Cheers,
Moritz
GR8! very useful! thanx!
have you read my 4 Tips on How to handle Firefox Memory Usage
@Anon,
Thanks for your feedback
@Moritz
Thanks for the comments. Yes.. that would a useful one. But I never seen people using that.
@Anon,
Thank you.
@cyperhackz
Thanks for the link. your tip was cool.
Nicely summed up!!
Worked for me too!!
Rekha, Thanks for that.. I’m really glad that it helped you too 🙂
Thanks. Firefox can be a resource hog like none before. This sure helps.
cyberst0rm’s tech blog
http://cyberst0rm.blogspot.com
cyberst0rm, I haven’t tested this with Firefox 2. Hope this trick shd work. let us know if that worked..
this is a very true article. My mom had all kinds of add-ons:
1.Google toolbar
2.Yahoo toolbar
3. Stumbleupon
4.Yoono
5.Jeteye
6.Blueorganizer
7.Foxytunes
8.JahJah
9.CoolIris
10.Greasemonkey
11.Map+
12.Firebug
13.Scribefire
14.Clipmarks
15.Chatzilla
She’s not comp-savvy. I think all of these were in the recommended list and thats why she got them. She never used any of them. Also, she complained that firefox was sucking. It crashed all the time and was slow(Gee, I wonder why…). I uninstalled all of her add-ons, and now she says Firefox works like a dream.
You shouldn’t download any extension unless if you absolutely need it. Try not to have more than 5.
Bob Jackson – Very valid points. If you’re really not sure if you need the addon, don’t install it. It might suck your memory. I also recommend to have addons not more than 5, but if you’re geeky you can extend it upto 10! BTW, Thanks for sharing your experience.
Works gr8..Thanx a ton.Keep up da good work!!
Irfan – Great, nice to hear!
hey, thanks fr this great article, it certainly works fr me with Firefox 2. I was actually trying to fix the slowness of my firefox, but wasnt sure how.
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Raphy / Manny – Whatever name it be, Thank you for your comments and link love!