Firefox memory tip

[StuartD]

1.
Type in "about:config" into the address bar and press enter, and agree to be careful.
Right click anywhere and choose New > Integer.
Call it browser.cache.memory.capacity

You?ll need to enter a number in the Enter integer value, but that number depends on how much memory you have (specifically, how much you want to "give" Firefox). If you have 256MB or less RAM, enter 4096 as the value. If you have 512MB of RAM, enter 6144 or 8192.

2.
Type in "about:config" into the address bar and press enter, and agree to be careful.
Right click anywhere and choose New > Boolean
Call it config.trim_on_minimize

What this does is, no matter how much memory Firefox is currently using, when you minimize it, it will shrink right down to 10mb of used ram! It'll slowly creep back up to 50mb but not exceed that.
Then when you restore it, it'll stay at or close to 50mb.

Restart Firefox after you've added these values.

[UFGators2007]

Cool. Thanks!

[seeandsee]

if you have 1.5 GB of ram?

[StuartD]

I forgot to mention it, probably because it's obvious (to me), but for config.trim_on_minimize, set it to true

[StuartD]

Originally Posted by seeandsee

if you have 1.5 GB of ram?

Ultimately it's up to you, but I use 8192 even though I have 2GB.
It stops Firefox from getting out of control but doesn't seem to slow it down at all.

[MaDalton]

Stuart, you ever heard of the problem that a website takes ages to open in Firefox but once it's loaded works fine? I am talking about 2-3 minutes for the first load

[nosey]

nice thx!

[StuartD]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

Stuart, you ever heard of the problem that a website takes ages to open in Firefox but once it's loaded works fine? I am talking about 2-3 minutes for the first load

Yeah, ultimately that comes down to a bunch of things, including making the initial handshake (connection) and how many 'pipes' it has gathering the info and even the paint (draw) speed of the browser.... where as each load afterwards only has to do a few of those things since a lot of the info is already in the cache.

All of these things can be managed though using various settings in the about:config.

All Firefox users should have these settings like this:

network.http.pipelining: true
network.http.proxy.pipelining: true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests: 8
content.notify.backoffcount: 5
plugin.expose_full_path: true
ui.submenuDelay: 0

If you have: Fast Computer, Fast Connection

content.interrupt.parsing: true
content.max.tokenizing.time: 2250000
content.notify.interval: 750000
content.notify.ontimer: true
content.switch.threshold: 750000
nglayout.initialpaint.delay: 0
network.http.max-connections: 48
network.http.max-connections-per-server: 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy: 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server: 8
browser.cache.memory.capacity: 65536

A couple settings of note - Firefox is allocated 4096 KB of memory by default and in this configuration we give it roughly 65MB as denoted by the last line. This can be changed according to what is used.

If you have: Fast Computer, Slower Connection

content.max.tokenizing.time: 2250000
content.notify.interval: 750000
content.notify.ontimer: true
content.switch.threshold: 750000
network.http.max-connections: 48
network.http.max-connections-per-server: 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy: 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server: 8
nglayout.initialpaint.delay: 0
browser.cache.memory.capacity: 65536

If you have: Fast Computer, Slow Connection

browser.xul.error_pages.enabled: true
content.interrupt.parsing: true
content.max.tokenizing.time: 3000000
content.maxtextrun: 8191
content.notify.interval: 750000
content.notify.ontimer: true
content.switch.threshold: 750000
network.http.max-connections: 32
network.http.max-connections-per-server: 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy: 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server: 4
nglayout.initialpaint.delay: 0
browser.cache.memory.capacity: 65536

If you have: Slow Computer, Fast Connection

content.max.tokenizing.time: 3000000
content.notify.backoffcount: 5
content.notify.interval: 1000000
content.notify.ontimer: true
content.switch.threshold: 1000000
content.maxtextrun: 4095
nglayout.initialpaint.delay: 1000
network.http.max-connections: 48
network.http.max-connections-per-server: 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy: 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server: 8
dom.disable_window_status_change: true


If you have: Slow Computer, Slow Connection

content.max.tokenizing.time: 2250000
content.notify.interval: 750000
content.notify.ontimer: true
content.switch.threshold: 750000
nglayout.initialpaint.delay: 750
network.http.max-connections: 32
network.http.max-connections-per-server: 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy: 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server: 4
dom.disable_window_status_change: true

Give that a try based on your setup, and you should see an improvement.
It won't "fix" the problem as the first time you load a site, it has to do a bunch of things using all this stuff.... and each load after will just load it from your cache.

[Horny Dude]

Bump for a great tip!

[nosey]

[USUALENT]

nice tips

[missipissi]

Thanks - I've been having many FF problems lately.

[SuzzyQ]

Thanks for the tip. FF is running faster so far.

[qxm]

Originally Posted by nosey

these pics just helped me forget bout all my problems...

[MaDalton]

Originally Posted by StuartD

Yeah, ultimately that comes down to a bunch of things, including making the initial handshake (connection) and how many 'pipes' it has gathering the info and even the paint (draw) speed of the browser.... where as each load afterwards only has to do a few of those things since a lot of the info is already in the cache.
...

thanks, i'll try that!

but i tend to think its a problem with my website (amazingcontent.com) or the apache settings of my server since i get complaints from visitors and experience that myself. but so far i haven't figured out whats wrong

and it happens only with firefox

[mOrrI]

Cool tips and cool pics :D

[Jakez]

Originally Posted by StuartD

If you have: Slow Computer, Fast Connection

content.max.tokenizing.time: 3000000
content.notify.backoffcount: 5
content.notify.interval: 1000000
content.notify.ontimer: true
content.switch.threshold: 1000000
content.maxtextrun: 4095
nglayout.initialpaint.delay: 1000
network.http.max-connections: 48
network.http.max-connections-per-server: 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy: 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server: 8
dom.disable_window_status_change: true

Hm, I don't have any of the content.------ ones or the nglayout one..

[Jakez]

Also, would you happen to know why FF sometimes won't play flash videos like youtube? It has no sound and plays like the first 2 seconds and stop. So annoying having to open IE because of this..

[Angry Jew Cat - Banned for Life]

Originally Posted by nosey

I've always been curious where that pic originated from. Hottie + FF = Win. But ya, good stuff Stuart, appreciate the post, I'll have to sit down after dinner tonigth and go through it more thoroughly. Yous eem to be the man for FF around here, good work!

[uno]

Originally Posted by Jakez

Hm, I don't have any of the content.------ ones or the nglayout one..

hmm are those strings or integers?

[SuzzyQ]

Originally Posted by Jakez

Hm, I don't have any of the content.------ ones or the nglayout one..

Same here. I dont have some of those items. Do I add them and if so, what would they be?

[Juicy D. Links]

Stuart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! good shit man

[TheDoc]

Originally Posted by Jakez

Also, would you happen to know why FF sometimes won't play flash videos like youtube? It has no sound and plays like the first 2 seconds and stop. So annoying having to open IE because of this..

My guess is it's the flash player plugin for your browser. I had a problem where youtube videos would crash firefox every time they opened, I finally reinstalled - actually updated flash, and it cleared up the problem.

[JB.]

Originally Posted by Angry Jew Cat

I've always been curious where that pic originated from. Hottie + FF = Win.

It came from some Portuguese blog, it's a photoshop.

[blogman9]

it doesn't work for me.

i have firefox on linux and after minimize F then htop still show me this same size of ram.

[StuartD]

Originally Posted by blogman9

it doesn't work for me.

i have firefox on linux and after minimize F then htop still show me this same size of ram.

Did you restart Firefox after adding it?

[StuartD]

For everyone asking, not all of those are set already, so you'll have to add them, just like the config.trim_on_minimize option.

So, for those that you have to add, here are the rules....

If it is true or false, it's a boolean. If it has letters, it's a string, if it's just a number, it's an integer.

So, for nglayout.initialpaint.delay, you'd right click on the screen and put New > Integer and enter the number into the next box.

[adonthenet]

great tips, thanks!

[nosey]

[Denny]

great. thanks

[mineistaken]

thanks for sharing

[Manowar]

neat tip!

[Ace_luffy]

Originally Posted by nosey

nice bump!

Thanks StuartD! I was having problems with my FireFox recently so I uninstalled and removed any traces of it from my system, reinstalled, and did these tips, now my problems seem to have disappeared.

[natas]

good tips... it is worth noting, if only by myself, that my firefox on my macs runs WAY better, smoother, and rarely lags/slows down, unlike firefox on my pcs.

Any idea(s) why this is?

Originally Posted by natas

good tips... it is worth noting, if only by myself, that my firefox on my macs runs WAY better, smoother, and rarely lags/slows down, unlike firefox on my pcs.

Any idea(s) why this is?

Mac > PC.

[Serge Litehead]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

thanks, i'll try that!

but i tend to think its a problem with my website (amazingcontent.com) or the apache settings of my server since i get complaints from visitors and experience that myself. but so far i haven't figured out whats wrong

and it happens only with firefox

have you tried to validate your HTML? ;)

I went to your site - first load in FF was instant, on reload it hang.. after i restarted FF it loads and reloads pretty fast, but I see HTML parsing problem on a very first line in your source - it's missing ">" at the end of DOCTYPE declaration.. missing those brackets can lead to unexpected behavior

[StuartD]

Originally Posted by natas

good tips... it is worth noting, if only by myself, that my firefox on my macs runs WAY better, smoother, and rarely lags/slows down, unlike firefox on my pcs.

Any idea(s) why this is?

I'm not sure many people could say with 100% certainty, and I'd rather this didn't become a thread about which OS is superior.
Simply put, it handles memory management (unused and leaks) better than Windows.

[Jakez]

Bump TTT!

Simply minimizing my FF now is better than even restarting it :O

[Juicy D. Links]

burpPPPPPPPPPPPP

[NinjaSteve]

If all users should have all of these settings, why doesn't firefox set it as default?

[Darkcrni]

Nice, nice thx!

[ExLust]

Cool tips. I'd try it.

[nosey]

[Socks]

What happens if you load up like 100 tabs in a FF instance then?

How would it just minimize all that data to 10mb?

Would that create a "HD sleep" effect, where when you go to access it, it needs to 'get up to speed' thus creating a delay?

[blogsy]

great tips. thanks!

[Chit Chat]

Bump bump...

[martinsc]

Originally Posted by nosey

i just love these two pics

[bbobby86]

Cool stuff... but i know that... an much more...

cool stuff, but does this have an effect on FF on 64bit platform?