What is Digg?198 Comments
- spyhunter, on 10/12/2007, -2/+130Ironically, this used to be the default, but was turned off at the request of people complaining that it made Firefox too slow to un-minimize. If they hadn't turned it off I'm sure the opposite story would be on Digg today, proclaiming that turning it off would make your Firefox faster, and there would be plenty of comments claiming that it worked and asking why this wasn't the default. People just can't resist tweaking things I guess.
- ChoadNamath, on 10/12/2007, -4/+47 1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.
In case link is slow/goes down. - modian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22FYI, this tweak will only work in Windows:
* Netscape (all versions since 7.2 on Windows)
* Mozilla Suite (all versions since 1.7 on Windows)
* Firefox (all versions since 0.9 on Windows)
* Thunderbird (all versions since 0.6 on Windows)
* SeaMonkey (all versions on Windows)
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Config.trim_on_minimize - coheedcollapse, on 10/12/2007, -3/+24Awesome, It was using almost 80 megs and I minimized it and it went down to 10. Really nice when I'm researching stuff in multiple tabs and writing a report in another window.
- vexter, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18TROLL!!! This SPAM links back to his PAY FOR HELP site.
- nathanmock, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17Works for me, very nice! Digged it!
For those of you that this does not work for/are experiencing problems, just go to "about:config" in the address bar, put "config.trim_on_minimize" into the filter, right click on the item, and click on toggle. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16I'll take this a step further.
Kill the amount of RAM Firefox uses for it's cache feature
Here's how to fix it:
1. type "about:config" (no quotes) in the browser.
2. Find browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewer
2. set it's value to "0"
Increase the Speed in Which Firefox loads pages
Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30 (warning, this last one might piss off some webmasters)
Right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0".
network.dns.disableIPv6: set "false"
"content.notify.backoffcount": set "5"
"plugin.expose_full_path": set "true".
"ui.submenuDelay": set "0" (zero)
Kill RAM usage to 10mb when FF is minimized
Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
Now watch FF fly. (FF is my main browser, and i love it.. and my plugins. But fact is.. FF is not going to touch opera in App opening speed, nor webpage loading speed no matter what you do to it) - mvprj84, on 10/12/2007, -5/+191.3 GB?? Didn't even know it was possible with Firefox!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Um. Because people run more than just a browser. If I have a browser open in the background taking up a gig of ram and I want to play a game without shutting every program down, I'm going to be a little bit screwed. Even just on the desktop, if you're running a browser, photoshop, listening to mp3s or watchign an episode of diggnation, downloading some torrents and writing some code in an IDE -- do you really want the browser to be chugging way the resources?
- astrosmash, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Ha Ha. This does nothing to reduce Firefox's memory usage. Looks like some people need to read up on virtual memory.
There are two stats you want to look at in Windows' task manager: "Mem Usage" and "VM Size".
"Mem Usage" is referred to as "Working Set" everywhere outside of Task Manager. Simply put, it's the amount of physical RAM that has been reserved for the given application. If you have a lot of free RAM this number will be higher that what the application currently needs. You want this number to be high if you're actively using the application.
"VM Size" is referred to as "Private Bytes" everywhere outside of Task Manager. It is the total amount of memory allocated by an application. If an application leaks memory, this is where you'll see it.
Memory that is not in the "Working Set" is a prime candidate to be swapped to disk to make room for other programs when they need it. By default, Windows flushes an application's Working Set when all of its windows are minimized. Memory is also automatically removed from the Working Set if it has not been accessed recently (i.e. leaked memory)
A feature was added to Firefox to prevent Windows from automatically flushing Firefox's Working Set when it's minimized. If you disable it, as this tip suggests, you're saying to Windows "Please swap Firefox to disk, I don't need it anymore"; then when you show the window again, you have to wait 30 seconds for Firefox to swap back into memory. - jj44, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11This is not a "hack", it's a preference in the freakin' program! Why is everything on Digg a "hack"?
- ethanl, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13You people need to learn what a memory leak is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak
- smozoma, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10In Windows, I have my mouse set up to minimize the current window when I press the middle mouse button. When I minimize this way, this trick does not work -- the RAM usage stays the same.
However, if I minimize using the minimize button in the top-right of firefox, it works (< 3mb).
It also doesn't work if you use 'show desktop.' - mvprj84, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Yeah, it is really nice how this works, at least you can free up a lot off memory by minimizing it instead of having to close it. I have gone from 240MB down 10MB.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1880? That's it? I checked lastnight and FireFox was using 1.3 **GB** of memory on my system.
- Surreal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Ok, people need to realize something here. This is NOT a fix. This has been stated a few times now, but people still aren't getting the picture. This just allows firefox data to leave the physical memory, and go into virtual memory. Which, in fact is degrading firefox's performance simply because when you maximize firefox all the memory has to make it's way back from virtual memory to physical. Leaving you wondering why it's taking longer for FF to respond.
This is not a 'hack', 'fix', etc... The setting was disabled by firefox's creator's as a FEATURE, for better performance for the end user. This is NOT fixing memory leaks. This is NOT alleviating them either, because any RAM that firefox is allocating will not go back to the system. That is of course assuming Firefox has bad leaks, which in fact is still debatable(link below). If you notice after minimizing you can watch your task manager and notice that the ram for the firefox process will in fact crawl up to it's original size - and possibly even higher.
About the leaks, you can read more here: http://www.squarefree.com/2006/02/04/memory-leak-progress/
The above link was mentioned before on Digg.
In my opinion, this article should not be dug, and this article is spreading quickly because of a false pretense.
Do you own investigating of this tweak, and you will quickly realize that it's doing more harm than good.
This tweak was mentioned before on Digg.
I have modded this post as "innacurate". - natmaster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Hack" sounds cooler - people think they're doing something special. Don't underestimate the power of sounding cool. :)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7LOL. I just HAXXOR3D you a digg++ with my mad skillz.
(I expect to be HaXXored down for this). - mattyice11, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'm pretty sure that only the FasterFox extension caches links on the current page, and that FF does not do that by itself.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I usually never see super high memory usage on it, either - until recently. I didn't have that many tabs open at the time, either. One window, six tabs. 1.3gb... it was crazy. Sure hope they get this stuff under control soon.
- ZachPruckowski, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6some of us have 768 memory, and want a word processor, browser, mail program, and chat program open at once. That's what I have currently. I'd love to be under 50 MB of RAM usage for the browser, especially when I only have a few tabs open (or just one)
- saskboy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I've read on Slashdot that the memory leak is an advanced caching mechanism where pages are pre-fetched or cached in a way that takes up a lot of RAM for faster Back browsing in particular. You can turn down the size of this cache somehow to reduce the "leak".
- unluckier, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7This is sort of funny, as the preference in question was part of the fix for this bug:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76831
This "hack" just reverts the browser to the original behavior, which will exhibit the above annoyance. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"This is sort of funny, as the preference in question was part of the fix for this bug:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76831
This "hack" just reverts the browser to the original behavior, which will exhibit the above annoyance."
Above you. - DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The heading is wrong. This doesn't actually reduce RAM usage, it just trims the process working set so it reports less RAM usage. What will happen is Windows will consider the memory used by Firefox expendable since its working set is now tiny, and swap it to disk as soon as it sees fit. Windows ALREADY trims the working set of minimized applications by default, although not so aggressively.
You'll probably notice Firefox will become very unresponsive when restoring the window after using your machine for some time.
What would be nicer is if the developers actually fixed the memory issues instead of users needing to get lame hacks. - Surreal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Excellent post. I wish everyone understood that enabling this "on minimize" tweak is actually a performance hit, and not a gain.
- kendawg, on 10/12/2007, -10/+14I have a question for everyone here. I know you all have 1024-2048 MB of memory, so why are you worried about firefox using as much as 50-300 MB? I know it SHOULDN'T use that much memory, but you have plenty of it and I know it doesn't hurt my computer. So why does anyone really cares how much memory it uses when it's minimized/maximized? Please don't mod this down, I want to see some serious answers so let plenty of people read this. Thanks!
- FarcicalFart, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7I've never had these so-called "memory leaks", but I often have 8 tabs open, so this may help keep the usage a little lower.
EDIT: It brings my usage to around 2.5 megs! Nice! - scotty2012, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6it still works on undo close tab for me
- stark23x, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This is an *awesome* piece of info. It really helps!
- TheGalacticFork, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Hmm, works to an extent:
Opened up the following tabs: pbnation.com, the LA Kings' Yahoo page, Kotaku.com, gamefaqs.com, this page, my gmail.
Before minimizing, usage was at ~65,7XXk
After minimizing, usage plummeted to 5,XXXk but then rose back to 21,XXXk
After restoring the window, usage rose to about 31,XXXk and is steadily rising back to 58,500k(at time of writing)
Reminimizing window netted it hovering around 6k to 8k usage
Restoring again and it steadily rose again.
So, worked to an extent, but I didn't really notice the difference, before since I never really took a look at the usage while minimized or while maximized. Glad to see it helped out others though. - MLBudToo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This is awesome. Job well done here! My memory usage just went down substantially.
- thegsa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Entero = Integer
Cadena = String
Logico = Boolean - mvprj84, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Interesting, never thought to try multiple ways of minimizing. Good catch!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Hardly. I've got 4gb but I don't want to waste 30% or more of it on a damn browser.
- aletornw, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4hi, i'm using firefox 1.5.0.1 in spanish and i don't have the boolean option.. no matters what option i select, it creates a string
screenshot: http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/2341/screen5af.png - jumjum, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Thanks for that info modian. My Thunderbird was stealing 250MB of memory, now it's down 90%.
- astrosmash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes, because this option doesn't actually cause Firefox to use less memory, it simply moves the memory out of RAM increasing the likelihood that Firefox is swapped to disk, thereby reducing Firefox performance. That's why the Firefox default options are what they are.
- mvprj84, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5It shouldn't mess those up, and if it does you just have to go and delete the 'key' that you just made in the about:config
- thegsa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Creo Que Es Logico, Pero No Estoy Seguro
- aletornw, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4yes it's logico, anyway i tried the three and all of then makes a string with config.trim_on_minimize, but creating a logico with name for example "lilili" makes it correctly.. really strange
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Here's another one.
Add a new boolean value in about:config named:
"browser.session.digg.noob.lol.oldDupe"
and set to true. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Can't wait to reboot ffx and try it, but uh, will it mess up "undo close tab" and adblock?
- ntrsfrml, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2doesn't work for mac os x :(
But Kudos to finder/poster/blogger!! - tsupersonic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Good tip, although I have no problem surfing on Firefox with high memory usage. I don't notice any slowdown on my system. Firefox ususally takes up less than 85MB average on my system, and I also noticed IE 7 uses more RAM. I am all up for more memory optimization, but I don't multi-task, I will probably do some Java programming, have Firefox open, Winamp, and IM at the same time (that's my max. multi-tasking).
- thegsa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i was messing around with about config and browser.cache.memory.enable to false
it might work because on my computer, firefox stays below 30,000 k of memory usage, and when I close a tab, it goes back to the original number of memory used. and in conjunction with this hack, it never went above 40,000 k ever - mousky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2First, it's not a hack. Second, this is not a memory leak issue. Third, this only works on Windows because it is a Windows option. There are numerous programs that 'free up' memory when they are minimized. Some programs do not free up memory when minimized - it's up to the programmer to decided. Fortunately, in Firefox we have the option to control this - an option that has been around a long time (nothing new here).
- Homez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Control Alt Delete, Processes, type f and find Firefox!
- Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Great trick! I did some tests, and it took it from 100MB down to about 3. Awesome!
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