TWEAK: Firefox Cache Tweaks (Move Cache, etc)

One of the many tweaks that can be done to make firefox faster is to move its cache to a faster, larger disk. This set-up can also affect the defragmentation level of the operating system disk, thereby improving performance.

I have noticed this in my PC. Moving firefox cache to a different slice or partition performance has vastly improved as the partition where my windows is installed does not get fragmented by the firefox files over time. How then is this done?

To move Firefox’s disk cache, use about:config to create a new preference.

* type about:config into Firefox’s Address Bar and press Enter.
* right-click any row, then click New, String. Type or paste the following preference name into the dialog box that appears browser: "browser.cache.disk.parent_directory"
* click OK, then enter the following string into the next dialog box, representing the directory name to the full path of the cache (e.g. D:\CACHE)
* click OK to close the dialog box, then close all instances of Firefox and restart it.

RAM Cache. Another trick to make firefox run faster is to tweak its RAM cache. Depending on your machine and the applications you run, this tweak frees up memory for other apps, speeding up everything to a greater (or a lesser) extent. As always, test out the value that best suits your requirement or gives better performance than previous settings.

To tweak Firefox's RAM cache, use about:config to create the preference.

* type about:config into Firefox’s Address Bar and press Enter.
* right-click any row, then click New, Integer. Type or paste the following preference name into the dialog box that appears browser: "cache.memory.capacity"
* click OK, then enter the following integer number into the next dialog box, representing 16 MB of RAM for the cache: 16000
* click OK to close the dialog box, then close all instances of Firefox and restart it.

Enjoy the speedboost the tweaks above can give.