How to reduce Firefox’s memory footprint ?
Posted by F. S. KAMAL on August 8th, 2010
After using IE for several years, I switched to Firefox when I learnt about extensions. I enjoy using Firefox and I can’t imagine going back to IE or using any other browser unless they offer the same extensions that I currently use. For my research projects, I sometime have to open sessions with several tens of tabs. But there is a drawback: Firefox is a devourer of memory.
While searching a remedy for this problem, I came across a tip that allowed me to reduce Firefox’s memory usage to about 50% with the same number of tabs open. Before implementing the tip described below, the task manager reported that Firefox was using more than 500 megabytes and now, with the same session open, it is reporting around 250 megabytes.
Disclaimer: please do not attempt this if you don’t know what you are doing!
Follow the process described below:
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.