In this article I am going to tell you how to decrease firefox memory usage and increase firefox speed. This article of mine has two parts. So, follow each part to the end to make your Firefox Faster and Reduce your Firefox Memory Usage:

Make Firefox Faster +10 tips:

1)

Firefox is usually very polite! it just send a request to server and wait to receive a response before sending another request. To set Firefox to send multi request at once follow these steps #1 to #3:

Open Firefox as a blank page or a blank tab. Type about:config in the address bar:

If you are seeing a warning page and the button I’ll be careful, I promise! like the picture below:

press that button to see another part. In filter bar type: network.http.pipelining to find it under preference name column:

As you see in the picture above, the default value is False. So, double click on it to change it to True:

2)

In the text area that is in front of filter bar, type: network.http.proxy.pipelining. and change it to True:

3)

Now find network.http.pipelining.maxrequests. Right click on it and click Modify:

The default value you are going to see would be 4. So, change it to 8:

4)

At the same page (about:config) Right click on a blank space and select: New –> Boolean: (now you are making a Boolean value. Through next steps you need to make some Boolean values again. I mean you should type about:config in the address bar and hit Enter then right click on a blank space and select: New –> Boolean)

name it network.http.pipelining.firstrequest and press OK:

Then set it’s value True:

5)

At the same page (about:config) Right click on a blank space and select: New –> Integer: (now you are making an Integer value. Through next steps you need to make some Boolean values again. I mean you should type about:config in the address bar and hit Enter. Then right click on a blank space of the page and select: New –> Integer )

Name it nglayout.initialpaint.delay and press OK:

Finally set it’s value to 0:

6)

Large and intricate web pages can take a while to download. Although Firefox doesn’t have any delay here but since in default it should shows you what it’s received every 0.12 seconds and this causes to increase loading the web pages. Well, to avoid this:

Just as like as step 5 make another Integer value name it content.notify.interval and set it’s value to 500000. Pay attention to the value ( It is five hundred thousand and not fifty hundreds )

7)

Just like #4 make another Boolean value. Then create a value called content.notify.ontimer and set it’s value to True.

If you haven’t moved your mouse or touched the keyboard for 0.75 seconds then Firefox enters a low frequency interrupt mode, that means its interface becomes less responsive and your web page loads faster. Reducing the content switch threshold can improve performance, then, and it only takes a moment:

Make another Integer value. Name it content.switch.threshold click OK and set it’s value to 250000 (one fourth of a second) then click OK to finish the job for now.

9)

It is also possible to extend the last tip to user interface. Telling Firefox to ignore all user interface events until the current page has been downloaded, causes Firefox load web pages faster. (may this would be a little effective but it is recommended to test it for your browser and see how does it work for you):

Make an other Boolean value called content.interrupt.parsing and set it’s value to False.

10)

There are many unwelcome flash on many web pages. As we know this causes slowing down browsing. So, what is the solution? there is a very simple solution. That;s just installing a Firefox extension is named Flash Block. To download or install this Firefox extension click here:

11)

As you know while you are browsing Firefox stores some script and images of the web pages in a local memory cache. And they can be retrieved faster if you open the same page. If you have plenty of Ram leave Firefox running to improve the performance.

Make another Integer value and name it browser.cache.memory.capacity and set it’s value to 65536. Finally restart your browser to apply the changes and get large cache.

12)

There is an other helpful Firefox extension named FasterFox. Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay. To download or add it to your Firefox click here. But the way! to add it to your Firefox you need to sign in!

13)

The last tip I’m going to write about is using anohter Firefox extension named DownThemAll. This is the description I’ve seen about it:

This is all you can desire from a download manager: it features an advanced accelerator that increases speed up to 400% and it allows you to pause and resume downloads at any time.

To download it or add it to your Firefox click here.

Decrease Firefox Memory Usage:

This is the second part of my article that is all about reducing Firefox memory usage. Well, I have tested all of these tips by myself with a Firefox 3 on a Windows OS and the result has been Great to me. Usually Firefox memory usage on a Windows OS is at least 50MB and at most 100MB and it depends on the mount of installed themes, plugins and extensions. But today you will experience working with Firefox using less than 50 percent of the early Firefox memory usage.

To understand my meaning better I have taken picture of my desktop. So, below you are going to see my Firefox memory usage before applying any tips of rest of this article:

As you see my Firefox memory usage is so near to the maximum reported Firefox memory usage and that is because of many installed plugins and Firefox extensions on Firefox of mine. At the end of this article I’ll show you my Firefox memory usage after applying all tips below. Easier and shorter tips are first and longer ones are at last:

1) Restart Firefox

Sometimes Firefox memory usages grows up more and more and you need to freed some memory to avoid Firefox using abnormal memory. Well, sometimes it would be useful to restart Firefox to freed some memory.

2) Clear Firefox download history

Open Firefox and then Go to:

- Tools –> Options –> Privacy

Finally just leave ‘Remember what I’ve downloaded’ unchecked and press OK.

3) Don’t open files into Firefox

Opening files into Firefox needs many memory. To avoid this it is just enough to follow these steps:

- Tools –> Options –> Applications

Then set PDF files to be saved instead of being open into Firefox. Finally press OK.

4) Keep your Firefox Up to date

It is really recommended to use newer version of every Firefox extensions, Themes\skins, Plugins and … That is because of improving newer extensions, plugins and themes about using memory. Don’t forget to keep these plugins up to date forever: Adobe reader, Shockwave, Java, Flash

5) Set Firefox to use less memory upon minimize

In default almost all software need less memory when you minimize them. But to set Firefox to work like this we should follow these steps:

In the address bar type about:config and press Enter then if you’re seeing a warning message press the button I’ll be careful, I promise! (just as like as first tip at first part of this article)

Then make a Boolean value and name it config.trim_on_minimize and set it’s value to True. ( I’ve told you how to make a Boolean value here ) Finally restart Firefox.

Thus you would be able to minimize Firefox upon you need more memory. After using this tip you’ll see that Sometimes Firefox memory usage comes down to just 8MB after minimizing! But when your return it into your desktop it’s memory usage grows slowly. Therefore this tip would be really helpful to freed more than 40MB of Ram at the moment.

6) Set Firefox to have fixed size of memory usage

In default Firefox uses a percentage of memory on your computer. Therefore if you have more memory, Firefox uses more memory. To avoid this in order to having a fixed size of memory usage for Firefox:

In the address bar type about:config and press Enter then if you’re seeing a warning message press the button I’ll be careful, I promise! (just as like as first tip at first part of this article)

In the new appeared window type browser.cache.memory.enable in the filter bar and change the value to True:

Then make an Integer value and name it browser.cache.memory.capacity. ( I have told you how to make an Integer value here )To set it’s value, you should work according to the mount of Ram on your computer. So, set it’s value according to the table below:

So, just double the value as Ram doubles!

NOTE: To restore the value to default change the value of browser.cache.memory.capacity to –1 ( I mean minus one ).

7) Use RamBack Plugin

This is a helpful Firefox plugin and this is the description I have read about it: ‘RAMBack will cause Firefox to issue an internal notification to free up memory that is otherwise held for performance purposes’

You can download this plugin or add it to your Firefox from here. If you are working with newer versions of Firefox, this would be the most recent version compatible with Firefox 3.0.7 that you can download it or add it to your Firefox from here

Use Portable Firefox

If having free memory is a critical problem for you it is recommended to use Portable Firefox and that is because of less Portable Firefox memory usage.

How have been useful to reduce Firefox memory usage?

As I promised you now I’m going to take a picture of my desktop to show you my Firefox memory usage after using the tips above ( Firefox memory usage when it’s maximize ):

As you see in the picture above I could decrease Firefox memory usage on my computer using the tips above to freed about 35MB.

So, This article finishes now and I hope you enjoy reading this article. I tried to make it visual and interesting to be more effective for you. Now Don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date via StayUpdate.com

Here you can find 4 handpicked Christmas Firefox themes to bring Christmas to your browser.

1) Xmas

Having a light and clean theme with fun and festive icons as your Christmas Firefox theme. This theme is only for Windows users.

2) Tinseltown

This is another Christmas Firefox theme including festive icon and clean view.

3) Winter Holiday Christmas theme and toolbar

Bring the Holidays to your browser via this one! Which includes sidebar with constantly updating Holiday music and videos. This can help to to see a nice and snowy scene!

4) X-Mas

Having a nice browser for Christmas time including animated snowfall upon the toolbar, animated toolbar icons and lights. This is not working on Firefox3 (What a pity!)

Do not miss to have a review for each one of these Firefox extensions.

1) WordPress Helper

Description: This Firefox extensions helps you to solve your problem on WordPress by providing some useful help and tools. I recommend it for all specially for beginners.

Preview:

2) WordPress.com Sidebar

Description: This is really easy to use. It makes you able to get quick access to your wordpress.com account from your browser sidebar.

Preview:

3) Screen grab to WordPress

Description: This Firefox extensions makes you able to save a webpage as an image and upload it on your WordPress blog.

Preview:

4) MMD WordPress.com

Description: Having a tiny statusbar panel that shows you your blog hit counter for your WordPress.com blog using this one. This extensions provide a right click menu to access your blog stats on WordPress. Ohm it is really nice!

Preview:

5) WordPress Post

Description: What a cool tool it really is! This extension lets you post the text you select in your browser directly to your WordPress blog. To make a post you can either click or drag the text to the statusbar icon, or use the browsers context menu. It is recommend specially for short and hot posts (Like: news, reports and so forth)

Preview:

6) One-Click Installer for WP 1.1

Description: This is experimental. This extension can be used to install plugins or themes on your WordPress blog with a single click. It makes you able to Install plugins or themes on your self-hosted WordPress blogs with a single click (needs the related WP plugin to work; not intended for WordPress.com).

Preview:

7) Exporter

Description: This is experimental. This Firefox extension helps you to Make a back up of Your weblog in WXR (WordPress eXtended Rss) Format. Just useful in some special occasions!

Preview:

No preview is reachable here!

Monkiri

Description: This Firefox extensions lets you grab any part of the web page and instantly publish it either on your WordPress blog.

Preview:

9) Dash blog

Description: Using this Firefox extension makes you able to quickly collect videos, images, text/quotes, songs and screen-captures from any web page and publish them to your blog (word press, blogger/blogspot, tumblr) and/or twitter.

Preview:

10) Deepest sender

Description: This one is a full blogging client for Firefox. Using this Firefox extension makes you able to post to your blog. All you should do is just hit Ctrl+\ or click the button in your toolbar. If you are using Firefox3 after going to the download page, find Deep sender version 9.0 to install. Because it supports Firefox3.

Preview:

11) Clip marks

Description: This Firefox extension lets you to capture exactly what you want others to see (text, image, video). Your videos will be saved on clipmarks.com and you can easily share them with your friends.

You can also post anything you clip directly to your WordPress blog (it also supports Blogger, Typepad and etc) or send it directly to friends or co-workers via email. Clipmarks also gives you a way to help the environment by printing only the parts of a page that you need.

Preview:

12) zwordpress

Description: This Firefox extension lets you to manage your WordPress blog faster and easier using some keyboard shortcuts. The most common shortcuts are these ones: (Shortcut: What to do)

ALT+Z+Z: View site
ALT+Z+X: Dashboard
ALT+Z+Q: Write a post
ALT+Z+A: Stats (Google Analytics)
ALT+Z+S: Earnings (Google Adsense)

when you use any shortcut keys, press ALT + Z, key up Z and the press the next letter. Press all the combination at the same time is a bit madness you can open a lot of tabs.

You can also define some shortcuts for your favorite events.

Preview:

13) Kaalga

Description: This Firefox extension makes you able to easily link to interesting phrases in your articles to relevant content. It also uses OpenCalais (Reuters) semantic API to suggest phrases in your text suitable for linking, and Google search to present relevant links for selected phrases. This Firefox extension also supports Blogger, TypePad and LiveJournal.

Preview:

14) ScribeFire Blog editor

Description: Having a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.

Preview:

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