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 thought I would start the week off with helping you make Firefox faster.  Now, there are no about:config tweaks or any other “under the hood” changes that need to be made.  Instead, we are going to save time by speeding up repetitive tasks.  FastestFox might be the best add-on for Firefox for getting this done.

You can get faster downloads, see definitions, auto-load the next page, improve your searching and a whole lot more.  FastestFox’s job is to dramatically enhance your productivity.

Here are some of the features in brief:

Wikipedia Sidebar: Here, you get a handy list of “related articles” on the left side of Wikipedia.

Popup Bubble: The popup bubble appears when you highlight some text on a webpage.  It will take you to the Wikipedia page for that word if there is one, and if there is not – then it goes a quick Google search for you.

Enhanced Awesomebar: This feature adds Google search results when you type keywords into the Firefox Awesomebar (otherwise known as the address bar).

Qlauncher: This feature gives you an easy way to visit your favorite webpages.  To start it up, hit Ctrl + Spacebar.  Once it is up, you just hit the corresponding key to launch the webpage you wish to visit.

As you can see, FastestFox gives you a lot of productivity tools all wrapped up in one handy Firefox add-on.  To learn more about FastestFox, be sure to check out smarterfox.com.  To pick up the FastestFox add-on, visit the Firefox Add-ons website.

Over at Download Squad, they have been doing some really interesting browser testing.  In a 4-way HTML5 speed test, Firefox 3.7 beat Internet Explorer 9, Opera and Chrome.  The Video really speaks for itself, but if you want to learn more – be sure to check out this post over at DownloadSquad.com.

When you load up a dozen or more tabs all at once, Firefox can slow down to a crawl.  Now, you can either choose to stop overwhelming Firefox with too many tabs or you can grab this helpful add-on for Firefox that will only load up the tab you need at the time, with multiple tabs still available. 

Just put it on your Bar Tab.

Here is how the magic happens.  When you click on a link that is going to be opened in a new tab, Firefox would normally go ahead and load up that content in the background.  What BarTab changes is the fact that it prevents Firefox from loading any content until you actually click over to the tab, saving yourself some resources and wait time.  You only pull up the data from the web page when you need it. 

If you restart Firefox a lot with multiple tabs open, you get one more bonus.  It will work on a browser restart too, which means Firefox will be coming back a lot quicker. 

You can pick up the Bar Tab extension from the Firefox Add-ons web site.

Smooth Wheel adds several more configurable preferences to your mouse wheel’s performance in Firefox.  Here is a little ‘bit more about the extension from the developer:

Smooth Wheel offers an enhanced and configurable version of the built in smooth-scroll. It uses some unique algorithms for smoothness and adaptive behavior (scrolls fast or slow by trying to anticipate the intention of the user). Allows to read long web pages easily. You can actually read WHILE scrolling. Kind of like the credits at the end of a movie, but controlled by scrolling the mouse wheel. Works with text-boxes and drop-down boxes too.

Here is a video tutorial, so you can see the add-on in action too:

Overall, this add-on might be the best scroll enhancing one I have used to date.  If you want to tweak the way your browser scrolls down a web page, head over to the Firefox Add-ons web site, and pick up Smooth Wheel.

Did you know you can tidy Firefox up, with VACUUM? No, I do not mean that thing you use to clean your carpets.  Here is a way to VACUUM your places database from within the browser.

Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Open the Firefox tools menu and click on error console.
2. Paste the following command into the code box as a single line:
Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");
3. Hit the “Enter” key or click the evaluate button.

The user interface will freeze for a moment, but after you are done, your SQLite databases should be less fragmented than before, leading to a leaner and meaner Firefox browsing experience.

Thanks goes to Mozilla developer Jeremy Orem for this fantastic tip!

Bonus – Vacuum Places Improved is an add-on that will do this for you automatically.

More About the Downloads Settings and Options

In the menu bar, go to Tools and then select Options.  In the Main tab in the options menu, you should see an area where you can configure how Firefox handles your downloads.

I would recommend selecting the Save files to option and setting up a downloads folder where you can save all your downloaded files.  Why?  It makes it much easier to find them after you are done, and also it keeps your desktop clean – which often is the default place to dump things for many people out there.  I have mine setup right inside of my documents in Windows XP and my profile folder inside of Vista.  It doesn’t matter where you put it, as long as it is somewhere you can easily reach.

Show the Downloads window when downloading a file is pretty obvious, checked it will show the download manager box as your downloads progress and unchecked, it’ll keep the download information and alerts in your Firefox status bar.  You can also select the option to close it when all downloads are finished.  I don’t do this, cause I usually want to check out what I just downloaded after I downloaded it. 

Always ask me where to save the files might be a good option for those of you out there that need to have everything in it’s specific spot, but often becomes a great time waster. 

Just dump your downloads into a folder called, “Downloads” – it makes things much easier.

Where are the features?  Here are some of the thinks I liked about this awesome add-on to your browser:

• Search by selecting/highlighting text and then clicking on the popup bubble
• Google results automatically show up in the Awesomebar/URL bar as you type (faster than going to google.com)
• Easily switch between search engines during a search with a single click
• Convert text URLs into clickable links
• Automatically copy on select / paste on middle click / paste on right click (NOT enabled by default)
• Visit bookmarks quickly with keyboard shortcuts using qLauncher
• Adds "related articles" side-pane to Wikipedia

There is definitely a lot of browser tweaking to be loved here.  It is that type of extension that does many things well, instead of focusing on doing one thing really well.  So if you would like to kill several birds with on stone – this is the pick me up your browser has been looking for. 

Want to give it a shot?  Pickup SmarterFox on the Mozilla add-ons site and let me know what you think.  Has it helped you browse the Web any faster or smarter?

How do you participate?  Here are the details from Mozilla:

It’s easy to participate in Fastest Firefox. Pick your talent (knitting, flipping burgers, brushing your teeth, whatever!) and make a video doing your thing—FAST! Follow the steps below and update before 6-21-09.

1. Make a 30-second video (home-movie style is perfect) of your fastest talent.
2. Click the button below to upload your video.
3. We’ll compile as many of your clips as possible into a single community video, so check after the Firefox 3.5 launch to see if yours made it!

Firefox 3.5 is two times faster than 3.0. And ten times faster than 2.0, or so they report via this new web site where you can learn about this speed run challenge. 

Why debate it, when you have a really big pretty graph to look at?  Here is some more on the topic from arstechnica.com.

One of the most impressive features in Google’s open source Chrome web browser is V8, a high-performance JavaScript virtual machine that was developed by a team of specialists in Denmark. Although Chrome’s performance beats the current stable version of Firefox, benchmarks show that Mozilla’s next-generation JavaScript engine actually outperforms V8.

So is the new browser speed war going to be between Firefox and Chrome?