How to Fix for Firefox memory leak problem on Windows

September 1, 2009 Leave a Comment

This seems to help out with the memory usage quite a bit. Generally, when you minimize a window the memory usage goes way down because that application isn’t active. Unfortunately, Firefox by default doesn’t adhere to this behavior. Here’s how to force it to.

Type the following into your address bar in Firefox:

about:config

You will see a window that looks similar to this:

You will want to right click anywhere in the window, choose New, Boolean, and enter in the following text:

config.trim_on_minimize

To change the value you can either doubleclick, or right-click and choose Toggle. You will have to restart Firefox, but after you do, you should notice the memory usage go way down whenever you have Firefox minimized.

Update: You will want the value to be set to True in order for this to work.

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How to fix Firefox 3 Memory Leak problem

July 12, 2009 Leave a Comment

Recently, I have very big problem with my Firefox browser. Few minutes after starting of Firefox application, my Firefox become too slow for surfing, all open applications freeze for two or three seconds after every my click. I noticed that Firefox.exe take up a big part of my computer memory. After reading several forums on the net, I find how to fix this “Firefox memory leak” problem.

Just follow these simple steps to get your Firefox memory usage under control. The solution was in ”about:config” Firefox hidden configuration options.

  1. Get the main configuration screen by putting “about:config” in the browser’s address bar.
  2. Right click on the page and choose New then Integer and create an integer called “browser.cache.memory.capacity”. Set it to a low number (I use 16384 – that means 15MB). This controls how many kilobytes of memory are used for the browser’s cache.
  3. In the Filter of “about:config” page (top of the page) put “browser.cache.disk.capacity”. Set “browser.cache.disk.capacity” (right click – Modify) to between 5000 or 15000 (I use 15000). For example: if you have 128MB to 512M use 5000, if you have 512BM to 1GB of RAM use 15000. This controls how many kilobytes of memory are used for the browser’s cache.
  4. Configure Firefox to swap memory to disk when minimized. In the Filter of “about:config” page (top of the page) put “config.trim_on_minimize”, Right click on the page and choose New then Boolean and create an boolean called “config.trim_on_minimize”. Set it to true. This mean – when you minimize the firefox window it will free up memory.
  5. In the Filter of “about:config” page (top of the page) put “network.prefetch-next”. Set “network.prefetch-next” to false. Network link prefetch will download all pages with the rel=”prefetch” tag, with false you avoid that downloading.
  6. In the Filter of “about:config” page (top of the page) put “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers”. Set it to low number. I set it to 6. This controls how many pages of history are kept in the back/forward buttons.

Restart Firefox and that’s it! Now, your Firefox and your computer will be much faster and you are ready for faster surfing. Enjoy!

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