Cache Status is a Firefox add-on that can clear the RAM and Disk Cache of Firefox automatically when it reaches a defined number. The add-on is not yet compatible with Firefox 3 right away but it works flawlessly if the install.rdf file is alterered that comes with the installation package.

To do that you need to download the Firefox extension from this link by right-clicking on the button and saving it to your hard disk. Now open the downloaded file with an unpacker like Winzip, Winrar or 7-Zip and extract the install.rdf file from the package.

Open install.rdf in a text editor and search for the line that begins with . Replace the complete line with the following line 3.0 and save the file. Now add the file to the installation package again and double-click it after that to start the installation.

The add-on will display the RAM usage of Firefox 3 in the status bar and it is possible to clear the RAM manually by right-clicking those information. If you want the RAM and Disk cache to be automatically cleaned you need to open the options of the add-on under Tools > Add-ons and click on the Options button of that add-on.

Just check the automatically clear .. options and define a percentage for each value when the automatically cleaning should kick in.

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This does not seem to be the case however and RAMBack introduced a routine that reduces the memory usage of Firefox 3. Firefox 3 does keep some files in the cache for performance purposes and RAMBack will cause Firefox to issue an internal notification to free up memory.

A commenter on the add-on page said that this add-on “only clears the internet memory cache of sites not currently loaded in the browser” which makes a lot of sense to me. I had troubles finding a way to find out if the add-on is as useful as it sounds.

What I can say is that the memory usage seems to be pretty stable for the same amount of tabs and websites and that it does get reduced by a bit when closing websites. The author of the add-on seems to be heavily involved with the creation of Firefox 3 and it seems that this add-on is really doing what the description says.

Before I forget it. The website of the add-on does not state it explicitly but it seems that the add-on becomes active when the user presses the Clear Caches button in the Tools menu. Would have probably been better if it would automatically do that every x minutes or something instead.

Update:

Before someone says I’m not giving credit. I discovered this add-on in the Delicious Hotlist. Just realized that Lifehacker’s Adam Pash wrote about it as well.

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After starting Firefox Ultimate Optimizer the RAM usage was reduced to 188 Kilobyte even with Firefox as the active window. The software does not have to be configured and sits in the system tray all the time.

I did scan it with Virus Total which did not find a single virus but I’m still puzzled on how this is achieved. I tried searching for more information but the developers homepage is down currently. It must be some kind of trick but I can’t find out how it’s done. If you know let me know please.

download at eSnips

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The first and most important aspect is to consider removing themes and extensions which can really consume lots of memory. Before you start removing extensions you should do the following to see if it is possible to determine which extension or theme is responsible for the memory consumption.

• Starting Firefox in Safe-Mode
  • Safe-Mode disables all extensions and themes and loads Firefox with the default template. If this method uses continuously less memory a theme or extension is most likely responsible for the high memory consumption.
  • To run Firefox in safe-mode simply add the following parameter during startup “-safe-mode”.

• Problematic Extensions
  • Some extensions cause unwanted side effects. The Mozilla team is collecting information about those extensions which can be looked up here. You can try the suggested workarounds to fix the problem or uninstall the extension completely.

All the following tweaks can be achieved by typing in about:config in the Firefox address bar and entering (part of) the bolded parameter into the filter field.

• Browser.cache.memory.capacity
  • Controls the maximum amount of memory to use for caching decoded images and chrome (application user interface elements).
  • This determines if and how much system ram Firefox will use to cache itself. The element does not exist and has to be created. The default value is set to automatic which means that Firefox uses a certain amount of RAM by default. (values for Firefox 2.x)
    • 32 MB of RAM -> 2 MB
    • 64 MB of RAM -> 4 MB
    • 128 MB of RAM -> 6 MB
    • 256 MB of RAM -> 10 MB
    • 512 MB of RAM -> 14 MB
    • 1024 MB of RAM -> 18 MB
    • 2048 MB of RAM -> 24 MB
    • 4096+ MB of RAM > 32+MB
  • You can tell Firefox to use another value by creating the element in about:config and assigning a different value (in KB) to it. It is also possible to turn this feature of by assigning the value 0 to it. This can greatly decrease the performance of Firefox and is not advised at all.
  • To reduce memory consumption reduce the amount of RAM that is assigned to Firefox.

• Browser.sessionhistory.max_entries
  • Firefox 2.x saves the last 50 visited websites of a single session in memory which means that it could add up quickly if you visit lots of content filled websites.
  • Reduce the amount of websites that are stored this way to reduce the memory consumption. It does not make a huge difference for most surfing habits to reduce the figure to 5 or 10.

• Browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers
  • Automatically determine the maximum amount of pages to store in memory based on the total amount of RAM.
  • If you have 64 MB or Ram 1 page is stored in memory, 2 for 128 MB, 3 for 256 MB, 5 for 512 and 8 for everything higher than that figure.
  • If you never navigate using the Back and Forward buttons in Firefox you can set this value to 0 to disable the feature.
  • Otherwise reduce the amount of pages stored in memory to make this feature use less memory.

• Config.trim_on_minimize
  • This preference determines whether to allow Windows to reclaim memory from a minimized Mozilla application.
  • Set to True if you want to free up memory when minimizing Firefox.
  • The value does not exist by default, simply create it and set it to true for better memory management.

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