By tweaking your browser cache settings from within about:config, you could see a ‘bit of a speed boost when it comes to using Firefox on a daily basis.  You see, when images are loaded by default, they can be cached so they don’t need to be redisplayed or looked for again. What we will be editing today will control the maximum amount of memory used for caching images.

Here are the steps you need to take to optimize Firefox in this way:

• Type about:config into the address bar
• Type browser.cache into the Filter field
• Set browser.cache.disk.enable to false (double click it)
• Set browser.cache.memory.enable to true (double click it)
• Right click > New > Integer; type browser.cache.memory.capacity; press OK
• Type in 100000 (this is equivalent to 100 megabytes). A value of -1 will tell Firefox to dynamically determine the cache size depending on how much RAM you have. Press OK, next.
• Close all Firefox tabs and windows, and then restart the browser

Kudos goes to Download Squad for this great tip. The idea here is that by making this tweak, your pages will load faster.  You tell me though, does it work for you – or is it a placebo?  I have been arguments for both sides since I first found the tip. 

For more information on editing the cache, check out the resource page on it on MozillaZine.org.  They have a nice breakdown on what it could be set to, depending on how much memory you have.

I can tell you from experience, having too many tabs open can be a real pain.  On occasion though, it is something you have to do, so you might as well find an add-on that will help you navigate through your tabs more effectively.  That is where TooManyTabs comes into play.

This great extension for Firefox can store as many tabs as you like.  How so?  Well, it adds extra tab rows to Firefox.  Rather than wasting your PC’s RAM, you can store your textra tabs in the other rows, remove them from being seen by your PC’s RAM and restore them all qhen you need them again.

This tutorial does a great job at explaining some of the basics of TooManyTabs:

Are you a tab-a-holic?  Then you need to at least give the TooManyTabs add-on for Firefox a shot.  Some of the other features include:

• Color coded tabs, pinned tabs (like perma-tabs), view tab history, restore recently closed tabs
• Customizable & multiple rows for tab storage
• Backup & restore features, tabs can be transferred across machines easily

You can download the TooManyTabs add-on for Firefox on the Firefox Add-ons web site or learn more about it on it’s official web site.

It shows tons of useful information right inside of your Firefox status bar. You can find out the memory usage (of the system and Firefox), the network speed, CPU details and more. You can also select which details you would like to have shown and the text color that it uses to do so.

As you can tell from the above screenshot – you’ll also look like a real geek when doing so (which is what we love to do) and impress your non-geeky friends. How many add-ons can do that?

Here is the nitty-gritty about:config solution to the problem:

• Open up about:config by typing it into your Firefox address bar.
• Right-click, go to new and then integer and name it this: browser.cache.memory.capacity
• For the integer value, enter in 15000 if you have 512MB to 1GB of RAM. For those with less (between 128MB to 512MB), try a value of 5000.  You’re done!

Then all you should need to restart Firefox for it to take effect.

Check out the Mozilla Firefox Tips page for more information on this (and a few more tweaks).  The RAMBack extension for Firefox also looks promising.

RAMBack will cause Firefox to issue an internal notification to free up memory that is otherwise held for performance purposes. Additional items will be hooked into this notification in the future.

Here are a few more links to help you reduce your RAM usage:

• How to Reduce Memory Usage?
• Popular Firefox Extensions Leak Memory
• CyberNotes: Firefox Extensions cause Memory Leaks and Crashes
• Solving Firefox Memory Leak Problems – Step by Step Guide

Another solution to help Firefox from feeling bloated is to check all of your extensions and themes to make sure they are not the culprit for your RAM overages. You might also look into restarting Firefox from time to time.

+ Learn to speed up Firefox by installing and running it in your RAM!