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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
   Double click “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to change it's value from “3” to “25”.
   7. Click anywhere in the browser and select “New > Integer”.
   8. Name the integer “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” amd it's value to “0”.