RMacD.com

Introduction

Though ubiquitous, Firefox still seems to have some issues regarding performance and preferences, some of which have changed a lot since the release of Firefox v2.

I have categorised these problems according to category: Performance, Display, User Preferences.

Any changes to these settings in your browser will require a restart of the web browser - close all instances of the program and reopen.

Accessing the Configuration Settings

Open the Firefox web browser and go to the address about:config

All the settings which control aspects of Firefox are set here.

Performance

Memory Leak

Summary: Limit the RAM Firefox may use for web browsing.

Description: Firefox is supposed to dynamically release RAM to other windows appliations as it is needed. However, Firefox sometimes fails to do this, and results in using all your memory. This setting caps Firefox's cache, so other applications are not at risk of being slowed down due to Firefox.

Setting: Right-click any row, then select New > Integer. Type or paste the following preference name into the dialog box that appears: browser.cache.memory.capacity and select OK. In the next dialog, which represents the RAM available for use by the cache, enter 32000 (32MB).

HTTP Pipelining

Summary: Change the number of files downloaded at once while browsing the web.

Description: While browsing to a web site, the web browser automatically downloads the images and other resources associated with that page, one by one. This can be changed so that the web browser will download more at once, making the page appear quicker.

Setting: Filter 'pipelining'. Set network.http.pipelining to true. Set network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to the number of files you would like to download at once. Set network.proxy.pipelining to true.

Notes: Setting network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to anything above 8 items is not reccomended, since many web servers will limit the maximum number of files to about 8 at any given timSunday, 23 November, 2008ther users.

Display

Force resizeable frames

Summary: Force frames to be resizeable.

Description: If you frequently visit websites which use frames, you may be aware of a problem where part of the page isn't visible if the frame which encapsulates it is too small. Sometimes, the web developer has set the option of making the frame unresizeable, so the user cannot adjust the width to view the whole page.

Setting: Filter layout.frames.force_resizeability and double click this option to set it to true.