Must have! firefox memory saving tweak

**egghead** · June 11th, 2006, 16:38 PM

Hi Folks

have you noticed that Firefox can be a memory hog and usually run up 100 mb of memory? This tweak allows firefox to write the memory to hard drive when firefox is minimized. The even cooler part is that it uses less memory when you maximize it and I cannot tell no difference when minimizing and maximizing the browser as it is instant! In task manager you can really see the memory drop and it is a must have tweak.

Here is the info,

Now, this is by no means a REAL fix for the Firefox memory leak, but it certainly does appear to help it quite a bit. This little fix will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, and as a result it will take up less than 10MB of memory while minimized. So far, from my experiences with using this today, when you maximize Firefox it will obviously increase the memory usage. However, it does not seem to go back up to the insane amount that it was at before minimizing it. For example, Firefox was at 180MB of memory usage and then I minimized it and after a few seconds I maximized it. After maximizing it and continuing on my routine business it appeared to only have gone up to 60MB. This seems to be a good solution for me right now since I frequently maximize and minimize Firefox anyways.

Now I know many people will say that Firefox will take longer to maximize since it will be located on the hard drive, but I haven’t noticed ANY delays. It is able to redraw itself just as quickly as if it was located in the ram (in my experience). Okay, now here are the few simple steps:

1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.

See how quick and painless that was? At any rate you can always go back and delete the same setting that you just created if you start to experience any issues. I have also set the browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers value to 0 because that will prevent Firefox from caching pages for the back button. This is also supposed to free up some memory that gets stolen.

Source Cybernet

Egghead

**phishhead** · June 12th, 2006, 15:26 PM

egg the hack doesnt work. I tried it and when minimized it does lower the mem usage significantly. but it you keep task manager open it will creep right back up .

**veronica** · June 21st, 2007, 13:52 PM

This did not work for me either. Thanks anyway.

**egghead** · June 21st, 2007, 19:30 PM

it is not a solution but a very good fix. All you have to do is minimize firefox when memory gets high and it will slowly rise again as you both stated. It is really cool if you don't mind minimizing firefox. For the trick to work you must minimize all firefox windows using the " - " box at the top right.

it does not work if you use the show desktop icon.

**veronica** · June 22nd, 2007, 10:58 AM

On Mozillazine it says that it is normal for Firefox to use 100 to 150 MB of memory.
Maxthon uses 2 MB of memory on my PC.

The memory on my FF goes up while minimized. I use it from the top, right - symbol.

Thanks for replying.

**egghead** · June 22nd, 2007, 14:48 PM

Originally Posted by veronica

On Mozillazine it says that it is normal for Firefox to use 100 to 150 MB of memory.
Maxthon uses 2 MB of memory on my PC.

The memory on my FF goes up while minimized. I use it from the top, right - symbol.

Thanks for replying.

yes memory will continue to go up. What the tweak does is write the info to disc everytime it is minimized. memory should drop dramatically in seconds if you have left firefox open for a long time. Once you minimize I noticed as much as 100mg of ram free'd up as a result of this trick. memory usage will creep back up in time as noted by phishhead and this is apparent if you kept firefox minimized. simply maximize and minimize firefox often to free memory.

**Nate89** · June 22nd, 2007, 16:06 PM

Even though my memory as well, crept back up, it is still 54 megs less then it was before the "trick". I was at 109 megs now am at 55 megs. What egg is trying to say is that when you do the "trick" and then minimize and maximize again it will be less then what it was before even though it may creep back up. At least that is how I am viewing this because I have not seen mine go above 100 megs yet. What I have seen it do is fluxuate between about 56 megs and the high of 75 megs which is still less then the 109 I had before. Thanks for the trick egg!

**Nate89** · June 23rd, 2007, 07:18 AM

Follow up: Even after leaving Firefox open for several hours, it is maxed at 80 megs which is still significantly less then what it used to be as compared the, like I said, 109 megs. So in my viewing, the "fix" does work and well at that. Thanks again Egg!