Web Talk

There are a lot of ways to make your Firefox happy. No, I am not talking about hugging and stroking the red Fox. I am talking about ways to make Firefox more responsive, faster and easier to use. In fact, you can use tons of add-ons or you can even tweak it in order to accelerate certain processes which the browser is supposed to run at a certain time. But I don’t want to write about this stuff, since I have already overflowed Web Talk with it. Today I want to stay on a simpler level. That’s not because I think you are dumb, but just because I think that there are a lot of simple procedures that the average user tends to forget cause he is quite busy to look for the latest hack or trick. Here is a list “forgotten” tricks.

• Check the stuff you added to Firefox. I know that adding new themes and add-ons is something you can’t help it, but sometimes having an healthy fast browser means getting rid of all the junk you loaded onto it. Uninstall unused themes and add-ons (or just use latest versions of them) and keep your Fox the cleaner you can. Having 2 or 3 add-ons and a couple of themes, most of the times is more than sufficient to make your Fox happy!
• Flush data periodically. Firefox is a  stingy Fox. As a matter of fact it tends to store a lot of data, cookies, history data, offline websites data etc. in its tummy. Flush it periodically, in order to have a fast browser, by clicking on Tools in the toolbar — Clear private data… — Clear private data now.
• Install the latest Firefox version. Firefox gets older quickly. Firefox is constantly updated. Don’t miss the chance to get the latest version containing fixes and security patches. The version you just missed could also contain new features increasing Firefox’s performance!
• Reduce the amount of the storage memory. Firefox is a greedy Fox. It likes to use a lot of memory to store the stuff it gets from the Internet. The more stuff it keeps, the more it becomes sluggish. If you want to reduce the size of its storage memory, in the address bar type: about:config and press Enter. Now click the button I’ll be careful I promise. In the filter bar type browser.cache.disk.capacity and press Enter. Double click on the value and change the capacity of the disk cache.
• Restart Firefox once in a while. Firefox is a lazy Fox. As a matter of fact if you never close it, it will become lazier and lazier (slower and slower). Close it and restart it periodically, as Firefox memory usage increases when kept open for long hours, this will make Firefox a fast browser.