My Firefox 2.0.0.7 browser has been a very slow and unstable lately. It has also been a memory hog, consuming about 130K of memory with around 20 or so tabs open. My friend AG recommended I look at this Firefox tweak from [1] Solo Technology. This tweak allows memory to be freed up everytime you minimize the Firefox browser.

It’s pretty easy to do:

1. Start Firefox (yeah, I know… duh.)
2. type “about:config” in the address bar and hit enter (don’t type the double-quotes)
3. type “config.trim_on_minimize” (again, not the double-quotes) into the Filter field. Odds are, you won’t have this preference but we should check first.
1. If you DO have the preference, make sure it is set to true
2. If you do NOT have the preference, add it
1. Right click anywhere in the preference list and select New -> Boolean
2. Preference name should be “config.trim_on_minimize”
3. Select true for the value
4. Close Firefox and then reopen it.

When the tweak is installed, and your browser of acting sluggish, just do a quick min/ max of it and it should free up memory. There were some comments on it not working on Vista and Linux, you may have to contact Solo Technology about that.

So far it is working like a charm, I haven’t had stability issues so far and the 130K of memory consumption has been cut by nearly half (with the same amount of tabs open). Be reminded that the amount of memory usage will be directly related to the number of tabs you have open and what you have running on your browser too. Therefore, it’s hard to be exact how much memory it will cut down on your browser.

Disclaimer: If you are not comfortable with tweaking a browser, it’s best not to do it. The Foo Logs and the author of the tweak (Solo Technologies) are not responsible for any breakage or/and data lost in the event you did the tweak.