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3 Hacks for Firefox That Will Double Your Internet Browsing Speed

There are many people out there complaining about the Firefox RAM Memory Bug. Lets get it straight. It's not a bug. It's part of the cache feature. This 'feature' is how the pages are cached in a tabbed environment. To improve performance when navigating (studies show that 39% of all page navigations are renavigations to pages visited less than 10 pages ago, usually using the back button), Firefox implements a Back-Forward cache that retains the rendered document for the last five session history entries for each tab. This is a lot of data. If you have a lot of tabs, Firefox's RAM memory usage can climb dramatically. It's a trade-off. What you get out of it is faster performance as you navigate the web.

Now a lot of people have found the 'secrets' on how to manipulate settings in "about:config" to drop the memory usage as long as possible and to increase the speed at which Firefox loads sites. Read on to find out how to do this.

Scudd6318d ago

Seen these before many times

Proxy6318d ago

I'm always impressed by the skill of those who are able to "hack" OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE.

Super-Brad6317d ago

I hate the word hack being used here as it's not a hack.
the author could off used the words:
Optimize
Improve
Speed Up
but hack was not needed.

SaiyanFury6317d ago

I just tested this myself and WOW. I opened 5 tabs and went to various sites and I watched my Task Manager as I did so. The article is right, the memory consumed does increase every single time. I started with Firefox taking up 10MB of RAM but after going to 5 separate websites in 5 tabs, it climbed to 50MB. I minimized the browser and it dropped to 4.75MB. Restoring the page, it only loaded back up to 28MB.

Very nice tweaks and thanks to the author for posting this very useful guide. I also notice that Firefox DOES load pages much faster. Kudos and much thanks, my friend.

phosphor1126317d ago

you can buy more ram that is cheap dirt these days and play a game windowed while browsing the interbutts at the same speed.

I even use ram thats at 400mhz when most these days are about twice the speed..

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 6317d ago
Sev6317d ago

Did any one do this part? I am wondering if the performance increase is worth it...

"Optionally (for even faster web browsing) here are some more options for your about:config (you might have to create some of these entries by Right Click –> New– > Interger or String

network.dns.disableIPv6: set “false”
“content.notify.backoffcount” : set “5“; (Five)
“plugin.expose_full_path”: set “true”.
“ui.submenuDelay”: set “0; (zero)"

Should I bother?

I did the first thing easily but this part seems more complicated

Final_Rpg6317d ago

I couldn't be bothered either, not in the mood to do anything that makes me think.

IzKyD13316318d ago

I used one of these before, they're really useful

Teh-Venom6318d ago

Indeed it is dude, just tried it right now and already see the difference. thanks to Op i just bookmarked that site for future reference. :)

SiLeNt KNighT6318d ago

yeah i used some of these before also. its nice for a refresher. since i installed windows 7 ive been doing a lot of downloading programs and updating software. while ive done this hack on two of my other computers before i forgot to do it on this computer so its a good reminder.

a couple side notes. the fist one (listed below) regarding saving ram is a little ify for some. while it will dramatically reduce the amount of RAM being used it CAN also slow down your browsing experience.

browser.sessionhistory.max_to tal_viewer refers to the pages that were recently visited and are stored in memory in such a way that they don't have to be re-parsed (this is different from the memory cache). This improves performance when pressing Back and Forward.

This preference limits the maximum number of pages stored in memory.

For those of you that aren't too concerned with the use of 120mb (about what Firefox uses), leave the default setting of: -1. It automatically determines the maximum amount of pages to store in memory based on the total amount of RAM.

Here's a reference for what all numbers will do in this category:

Auto = -1
32MB = 0
64MB = 1
128MB= 2
256MB= 3
512MB= 5
1GB = 8
2GB = 8
4GB = 8

Lowering theses values causes less memory to be used but also causes more previously visited pages to have to be re-parsed (thus increasing their load time). Raising it has the opposite effect. One page will on average take 4MB of memory.

And last the FREEWARE 'Advanced Windows Care' [AWC] has a function built in that changes most of this for you along with some other things that will really speed up FireFox. You can get [AWC] for free from cnet.com. Really its one of the best pieces of security/Maintenance software I've ever used.

CryofSilence6318d ago

Heh, I tried it and it actually works. Sweet :)

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70°

Microsoft Gaming Revenue Drops 7% Year-on-Year, Content and Services Down 5%, Xbox Hardware Down 33%

Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.

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simulationdaily.com
Jin_Sakai12d ago (Edited 12d ago )

Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.

dveio12d ago

To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.

Jingsing11d ago

The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.

Tanktopmaster9212d ago

Once they re-evaluate exclusive all will be fine….

S2Killinit11d ago

Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.

Jingsing11d ago

15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.

Tanktopmaster9211d ago

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

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50°

Report: Injustice 3 in Development at NetherRealm Studios

Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.

50°

Spiders Studio, Developers of GreedFall: The Dying World, Announce Liquidation of the Company

Spiders: "We're going to cut straight to the chase so you're not left wondering: After a long period without clear answers, we have received confirmation that Spiders is being liquidated.

What does it mean? This means the company as a whole no longer exists. We'll cease our functions immediately. The planned DLC will release via Nacon, and then-- well, that's it.

We're sorry that it's come to this and would like to thank each and every one of you for your support over the years.

If you have any questions or run into issues with your games, please contact Nacon directly as we'll no longer be able to reply."