The Mozilla Firefox development team switched to SQlite databases for data storage in Firefox 3. One problem that arose because of this switch was an increasing Firefox profile folder size as there was no build in way to optimize the SQlite databases regularly. We reviewed a solution to this problem a while ago (read: optimize sqlite databases in Firefox) which involved running a batch file in the Firefox profile directory to optimize the databases and reduce their file sizes. The process can be best described as a defragmentation to close gaps that contain no data which will free the disk space.
The Firefox add-on Vacuum Places makes this process more comfortable by providing the means to run the database optimization right from within Firefox. The experimental add-on will optimize the SQLite databases of the active Firefox profile whenever its button in the Firefox status bar is pressed.
The database size reduction depends largely on the amount of data in the database, the time it has been in use and the last cleanup. A run on a test system (using the batch file) reduced the size of the profile folder from 64.8 Megabytes to 53.4 Megabytes.
Vacuum Places can be downloaded from the official Mozilla Firefox website. It is advised to create a backup of the Firefox profile folder before running it for the first time.
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Great find Martin, to bad that this extension does not have a sort of significant indication on the statusbar (his icon) that your ready, with the vacuum.
i installed it. the single dialog is all in Russian so i uninstalled it
please let us know when there is a version in english
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13878
Vacuum Places Improved is in english an has a few options more (and they are actually implemented).
for those getting the exception error: it only works with firefox 3.1, NOT 3.0
Firefox is the house of many add ons and many people utilize more of its add ons . Hence it is essential to improve the efficiency and your solution is at the best.