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Make Firefox Go Vroom!

July 11th, 2007, Published in Investigations, 2,984 Views, Email This

I love and use firefox. Not only is it popular with yours truly, it's popular with the entire internet - internet explorer's popularity has decreased while Firefox has continued to grow and grow and grow. It's popular because it's known for being more secure, having better features and being extremely customizable. But, it can be slower than other browsers, especially when compared to other standards based browsers such as Opera and Safari. Over the past few months I have investigated the best techniques that can be deployed to speed up Firefox dramatically and reduce Firefox memory usage leaks. What follows is “Make Firefox Go Vroom!”, 5 techniques in all that have made my Firefox leaner and meaner, and could make your Firefox leaner and meaner as well. Please let me know if these techniques have increased the speed and efficiency of your Firefox browsing experience by dropping me a comment... Enjoy!

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1 Release Memory When Minimized

By releasing Firefox's memory usage when minimized, there is extra memory available for other tasks. It also means if you need to switch to Firefox you can, and its running how you left it. Here how to get this function enabled:
1. Right click in the browser menu and select “New > Boolean”.
2. Enter “config.trim_on_minimize” into the popup window.
3. Select “True” then press ok.
2 Assign Memory Cache

Firefox is setup to use system memory by default, but by assigning a fixed memory cache memory usage can be controlled and reduced.
1. Enter “about:config” into the address bar.
2. Enter “browser.cache.memory.enable” in the filter field.
3. Double click on “browser.cache.memory.enable” “false” to “true”.
4. Right click on “browser.cache.memory.enable” and select “New > Integer”.
5. Double click on “browser.cache.memory.enable” “false” to “true”.
6. In the dialog box that opens enter “browser.cache.memory.capacity” and click ok.
7. Enter the following values depending on your amount of RAM:
  - "4096" (256MB RAM).
  - "8192" (512MB RAM).
  - "10240" (768MB RAM).
  - "16384" (1024MB RAM).
3 Only Display What You Click

By default Firefox downloads pages from links it thinks you may click on. This uses extra bandwidth and the bottom line is that it's unnecessary. To disable ...
1. Enter “about:config” into the address bar.
2. Double click “network.prefetch-next” to change it's value from “true” to “false”.
4 Disable Back/Forward Cache

Firefox has feature that makes recently visited pages load faster. But, if you don't revisit the pages you've recently visted then its just a waste or processing power and memory usage.
1. Enter “about:config” into the address bar.
2. Enter “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers” into the filter field.
3. Double click “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers” to change it's value from “-1” to “0”. Setting “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers” to “0” disables this feature. If you think this feature will help you then set “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers” to “5” (for 512 RAM) and “8” for 1024 RAM)...
5 Enable Pipelining

Firefox has feature that makes recently visited pages load faster. But, if you don't revisit the pages you've recently visted then its just a waste or processing power and memory usage.
1. Enter “about:config” into the address bar.
2. Enter “network.http.pipelining” into the filter field.
3. Double click “network.http.pipelining” to change it's value from “false” to “true”.
4. Enter “network.http.proxy.pipelining” into the filter field.
5. Double click “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to change it's value from “false” to “true”.
6. Enter “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” into the filter field.
7. Click anywhere in the browser and select “New > Integer”.
8. Name the integer “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” amd it's value to “0”.

7 comments so far

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1 PlugIM.com
4:54 pm - 7-11-2007

Make Firefox Go Vroom! In 2 minutes and 59 seconds … (video tutorial)…

I use Firefox to browse the web. What do you use? Some times Firefox is slow. I have collected the top 5 best advanced techniques to modify firefox to do two things: Speed up Firefox. And reduce memory usage and memory leaks. Please check these techniq…
2 AlanWho
4:57 pm - 7-11-2007

Hey! Alan here, please let me know if these techniques have helped speed up your Firefox browsing experience!
3 Kenjun
8:05 pm - 7-11-2007

According to this article, Firefox will overtake both of the most recent versions of Internet Explorer (6 & 7) to have the most market share of any version of any browser.

If forecast is right, then this will be the first time that any none-Microsoft browser version has had majority market share since Netscape.
4 AlanWho
8:24 pm - 7-11-2007

Kenjun, I didn’t state that Firefox will overtake IE, just that it has been growing over the last few years while internet explorer has been declining in popularity.

According to w3Cschools.com in January 2005, Firefox had 16.6% of the browser share online. In January 2007 31% of the browsers used were Firefox - which is a substancial growth.

Thanks for checking this article out.
5 iain scott
12:18 am - 7-12-2007

i need to e-mail you about this, you need help! But i followed the instructions fine because i have a brain!
6 Amy
4:12 am - 8-10-2007

These are great settings, they worked a treat on the memory leaks — thank you very much!
I would only suggest, for firefox newbies, inserting instructions on how to open about:config above the first tip. (if you right-clock on the browser menu without first opening about:config, you won’t be able to choose new, and then boolean, from the context menu).
Cheers, Alan!
7 Elaine
6:16 am - 9-4-2007

Thank you for the tips! They have been of great help :)