How to make Firefox browser use less memory
Add-ons: Themes and Extensions is definitely one of the reasons why Firefox is using more memory than normally it takes. Start your Firefox browser in safe mode and observe its memory usage. You will come to know whether themes and extensions are significantly consuming memory or not. If you observe a significant improvement then you should try uninstalling or disabling extensions.
Plugins: PlugIns especially the older versions can consume large amount of memory. So ensure that you are using latest versions of plugins. In case you are still experiencing problems, here are some workarounds for some specific plugins that are listed below.
Adobe PDF Reader: This is a Windows utility that can disable various features of this plugin to decrease memory usage and to improve performance.
Flash: Very often Flash is not needed for a website to function. The Flash back extension will definitely prevent Flash content from automatically loading. The flash content is replaced with a button that you can easily press if you want to view it. As less Flash content is loaded, the Flash plugin is invoked fewer times thereby using less memory.
Download History: Firefox will take excessive memory space if its download history is very large. An easy solution is to clear the download history.
1] At the top of Firefox window, you have to click Tools menu and then choose Clear private data. On choosing this option, 'clear private data window' opens
2] In clear private data window, you have to select download history and then deselect other items
3] Click on 'Clear private data now'
Settings that can reduce memory usage: You can make use of Firefox's hidden settings to modify the way Firefox uses its memory.
Memory Cache: Firefox caches interface and image data in memory that is why you can display this data very quickly. You can actually view how much memory is being used by Firefox for this purpose.
1] Enter about:cache in Location bar that is at the top of Firefox window and then press enter
2] A page that lists your Firefox cache information appears. Under 'Memory cache device' heading the 'maximum storage size' is nothing but the amount of memory required by Firefox for this purpose. Storage in use is the amount of memory currently being used by Firefox for this purpose.
Firefox by default uses more memory on machines that have more memory installed. If you lower the amount of memory that is available for caching, then Firefox will take more to display dialogs and web pages.
1] In location bar, enter about:config and then press enter
2] The about:config page appears. Right click anywhere in grid and then select New and then 'Integer'.
3] In 'enter preference name' prompt, type the browser.cache.memory.capacity and then press OK.
4] Next type the number of kilobytes that you want Firefox browser to allocate and then press OK.
5] If you wish to set preference back to default value then
1] In location bar, enter about:config and then press enter
2] Search for preference browser.sessionhistory.max-total-viewers.
3] You will have to right click the entry for browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers ands then press Reset.
Blazingly fast back: Firefox stores web pages in memory so that it can display them very quickly, whenever you press forward or back. By default, Firefox makes usage of more memory if the amount of memory installed on your computer is more. If you lower the number of stored pages then it will slow down the browser when you press forward or back.
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