Firefox, one of the most popular internet web browsers, is enjoying quite a bit of success lately with it’s recent release, Version 5.  Lots of bugs were squashed and features were added.  But not everyone is hailing the Mozilla successor.  Firefox has always been a memory hog, and that doesn’t seem to be getting any better.  But you’re in luck; I’ve got a fix that just might tame your fox.

This day and age, internet speeds are blazing fast.  So that begs the question of caching.  Do we really need it?

Cache is the data that is stored on your local computer.  It remembers pages you visit and loads that data quickly so that y ou don’t have to download it everytime.  Good theory, but like I said, internet connections are getting faster and faster all the time.  And unfortunately, the way Firefox does it, your memory can get gobbled up pretty quickly.

By default, Firefox remembers that last 50 pages you’ve visited.  If you’re a rabid surfer like I am and visit that many pages in one session, you will see your computer memory rack up pretty quick.  So let’s take this number down to say 10 – or 5 even.  Here’s how you do it:

WARNING:  DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS IF YOU FEEL UNEASY ABOUT YOUR COMPUTER ABILITIES.

1. Open Firefox

2. In the address bar, type

3. about:config

4. Click Enter

5. You will imediately be greeted by a warning, if you agree, click continue, otherwise just exit

6. In the Filter box, type

7. browser.sessionhistory.max_entries

8. At the top of the above entry are columns, double-click the number 50

9. A box appears

10. In the box, change this to 5

11. Restart your browser, and all should be fixed

12. To revert back, just follow the same steps above and change the 5 back to 50