Firefox Ultimate Optimizer

Martin Brinkmann
Jan 12, 2008
Updated • Jun 16, 2012
Firefox
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56

Would you use a program that would reduce the memory usage of Firefox to 100-200 Kilobyte ? I have no idea how the Firefox Ultimate Optimizer is reducing the memory usage to this amount but the task manager is verifying the reduction. Firefox has been using roughly 40 Megabytes of RAM whenever I started it and one homepage was loaded.

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.

Update: The file is no longer available, and I suggest you take a look at another comparable program instead if you want to optimize the browser's memory usage. More recent versions of the web browser have been optimized by Mozilla in this regard, and you should see a drop in average memory usage when you compare one of the latest versions to Firefox 3 or 4.

One program that you can check out for the purpose is Firefox Plumber which can reduce the memory usage of the browser significantly, at least for a while. Alternatives include automatically restarting Firefox on high memory usage, using Memory Fox which works more or less like Firefox Plumber, or applying a tweak to the browser to trim the memory when the window gets minimized.

You can combine some of the options if you want, even though I'd suggest you start with the config tweaks first to see if it resolves the memory issues. If not, check out the programs that can reduce the browsers memory usage significantly.

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Comments

  1. Virtuelne ture said on March 5, 2012 at 1:13 am
    Reply

    Does this program put all RAM memory into Virtual memory ?

  2. optimizacija web sajta said on October 4, 2011 at 10:48 am
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    Kaspersky internet security says that it is suspicios, do you know why?

  3. Alap said on March 23, 2010 at 2:47 pm
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    I am using Still-Later Version: Firefox Optimizer 2010.
    It is SURELY reducing the VISIBLE Amount of RAMConsumed by Firefox to 1/10th of the Previous Values!!!!

    Astonishing. Further, the PC is also not slow. It is Working Better. HDD is not being accessed. Neither am I getting any Adware/Malware,/ UnAuthorized Access to Internet Warnings from ESET NOD 32 Security Suite!!

    Bottom Line: This program APPEARS to WORK. HOW???? is a BIG Question!!!

  4. Abrucard said on January 15, 2010 at 9:42 am
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    As far as the adware thing, yes, this installs a few shortcuts to websites, and asks if you want to install a toolbar, but it does NOT install actual adware/spyware/viruses. If you have a decent computer (Lots of RAM and CPU power) you will most likely not benefit from this, but on an older computer with not so much RAM, maybe. If you want to make Firefox magically faster, get rid of unused addons. Don’t believe me? Create a new profile for Firefox (it will leave your other one untouched) by using Run> firefox.exe -p and create a new profile, with it’s own folder. It should start up right away, and compare the amount of memory required compared to your current configuration. To get back to your old profile, run the command again and select the default one. Yes, Firefox will most likely always be a memory hog, but to me, it’s worth it for the extra addons and options. If you want a browser that is fast and slimmed down, try Google Chrome (build using the Gecko engine from Firefox) or Safari (not a personal favorite of mine). Those browsers do not offer much as far as customization, but they start up and run fast, and are generally safer than Internet Explorer. These are just my opinions, not fact. The situation is usually always different for everyone. My advice, do your research instead of believing a few belligerent comments.

  5. Rose said on May 17, 2009 at 1:43 pm
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    This is a great software. it reduces firefox memory usage to nothing Which is awesome

  6. elizer said on April 27, 2009 at 1:38 am
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    nice info thanks for share

  7. sdfg said on March 1, 2009 at 11:12 pm
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    McAfee does not like the file

  8. Izrada web sajtova said on February 24, 2009 at 12:25 am
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    I’m not sure about that optimiser

  9. Fekete said on February 13, 2009 at 9:13 am
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    Virus detected!!!!
    Win32/Adware.Agent

    ESET NOD32 3.0 Antivirus

  10. lanio said on January 4, 2009 at 9:32 am
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    has a new version in 2009
    Firefox Optimizer 2009
    http://zenaz.co.uk/2009/01/04/firefox-optimizer-2009/

  11. Know said on December 18, 2008 at 1:57 am
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  12. Sho said on November 21, 2008 at 3:57 am
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    Yeah,nice
    I’m using firefox as well, but i have doubts in that Firefox Ultimate Optimizer also.
    Now,I don’t use task manager but Sysinternals “process explorer” wich is more thorough
    In first picture you can see firefox running with this page opened ( http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=firefoxrunninghr5.jpg )and memory consumption is ~45 MB
    in second picture ( http://img167.imageshack.us/my.php?image=firefoxrunningwithoptimrf7.jpg )Firefox Ultimate Optimizer is running as well but there is same memory consumption and now Firefox Ultimate Optimizer is eating aditional 16 MB

    Firefox Ultimate Optimizer, kiss my ass

  13. Anonymous said on November 20, 2008 at 12:58 pm
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    lol,

    I just removed all my unused add-ons.
    That realy free’s a lot of ram.
    (specialy the ad-blok add-on)

  14. DWLT51 said on October 31, 2008 at 8:18 pm
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    Excelent.Works fine.No virus.No Spyware or any type of Malware.Reduce Ram comsumption from 89% to 58%.Great.

  15. Ryan said on August 31, 2008 at 4:40 pm
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    Well all these memtools will eat up your CPU load so quickly, I have a 1Ghz AMD chip and my CPU usage was always 100% while using these programs, this is because Microsofts .net framework program is ALWAYS running in the background. I would imagine that this handles the memory processes

    Mscorsvw.exe
    Run FUO or minimem and look at the cpu usage that this program takes up

    So for me, this does nothing, I found that while firefox may handle thins like videos abit better, it lowers the amount of multitasking that I would usually be able to do

  16. yannlh said on August 1, 2008 at 9:46 pm
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    You may want to look into this free tool: http://minimem.kerkia.net. It does the same thing as this ultimate optimizer tool though seems by far superior as:
    – It can do it for another applications too, not just Firefox
    – You can adjust the frequency at which it reduces the memory usage
    – Though it does more it is smaller in size and not referenced on any site as adware
    I use it every day and optimize Firefox with it using a 30s update; works like a charm, so well that I forget it’s running.

  17. Cody said on August 1, 2008 at 6:23 am
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    nick, if you must know.

    I happen to be 13 and don’t have $400. It took me about a month and a half to get my parents to get me some more RAM and I don’t think I’ll get a new PC, since this one serves me pretty well. I am planning on asking for a new graphics card for Christmas/birthday, and I won’t need a new computer until the ridiculously higher-powered graphics cause my computer to be junk.

    I don’t have a job, soon I’ll be making #3.60 a day though.

  18. nick said on July 31, 2008 at 5:22 pm
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    Cody,

    Why are you such a cheap ass? You could get a rocking PC with 1gb of ram and a dual core processor from a major company like dell for about $400

    Quit being such a cheap ass and get a new PC. Do all of you people on these old computers work at McDonalds?

  19. Bob said on July 19, 2008 at 5:22 am
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    ditto to what cody said, now I can move gigs of stuff between my external hd and my internal much smaller one, i can surf the web, download @ ABOUT .5 mb per second off utorrent, AND watch an action movie like starship troopers 3 (horrid) all in one go, Im running 384 mb of ram, and a horrid 1.4 ghz pentium 4. This proggy helped me TONS! now I can actually really multi-task decently. My dell is eight years old, I bought it when I was still in middle school, im 22 now…

  20. Cody said on July 2, 2008 at 7:03 pm
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    I started using it recently. It’s not supposed to make FireFox faster, it is supposed to reduce RAM usage for the program, so that when people on old computers with 190MB of RAM (me) use FireFox, it doesn’t completely slow down every other program. I couldn’t run, say, RPG Maker VX and FireFox at the same time, because that’s 70,000KB and 60,000KB of memory at the same time, which my computer can barely handle, which slows down system processes and other programs. This has worked great for me, I haven’t gotten any ads yet, and now I can run FireFox and other programs together very nicely.

  21. rallan said on July 2, 2008 at 9:45 am
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    It fakes the firefox process and hides the real one, this makes it seem to be using a very low amount of memory.It is adware and makes ads popup. do not use!. It actually uses more memory because of this. The friefox memory is split into different processes and it makes firefox.exe seem to use less memory.

  22. lol said on June 14, 2008 at 11:58 pm
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    Idiots this is useless.
    Yes you can tell a program to use your hard drive instead of RAM, but you see, THERE’S A GOOD REASON THAT PROGRAMS USE RAM BY DEFAULT; the hard drive is much MUCH slower then RAM, so all this will do is slow oyu down IMMENSELY.

  23. dezi said on June 2, 2008 at 5:25 am
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    as for you guys saying it eats CPU – when I run it on an AMD 2100+ box it uses 1.54% of CPU & Firefox uses up to 15% … if I use Firefox WITHOUT it — often FIREFOX & it’s addons will eat up to 85 to 90% of my CPU … and BTW forget! Windoze Task Manager! get Process Explorer from here if you want to REALLY see what’s going on … it was created by the guy that found Sony was using a Rootkit for their DRM for their music CDs … Microsoft hired him and bought out his free tech apps … at sysinternals.com
    You can get Process Explorer free here …
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

  24. dezi said on June 2, 2008 at 4:54 am
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    some of you guys aren’t getting it — if you have 15 tabs open + 20 add-ons installed and only use 2 or 3 of them at any one time — the “unused” tabs & addons are eating SYSTEM RAM that would normally be available to OTHER apps that are being used so then it needs to write to the Swap file on the disk …>> his app DOES work if have lots of tabs open & lots of addons– and don’t tell me you switch between all 15 tabs in milliseconds which is the hard drive speed … man I think the internet is becoming just one complainers, cry-baby, Whiners nest … wahh!! wah!! wahhh! … people just like to criticize every thing — it’s f*kin free u don’t like it MAKE a f*kin better ONE!!

  25. _jo_ said on May 15, 2008 at 7:02 pm
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    its useless IMHO. yes it cuts firefox’s memory usage but the total memory usage ups by 3k, the 3k used by the optimizer. seems like its putting the memory usage of firefox on some rundll’s i saw popping out in the task manager when the optimizer runs.

  26. Pete said on May 8, 2008 at 7:51 pm
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    I got the same notification from Spyware Terminator as well. It said that it will show pop up when the primary user interface is not visible.

  27. Rajat said on May 3, 2008 at 3:34 am
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    is it just me or is this happening with everyone else but no one’s ever mentioned…
    i am using kaspersky internet security and the moment i download this file, kaspersky blocks it saying it has some malicious code. it says “found AdWare.win32.FireOptimizer”…
    has no one faced this problem???

  28. crazyperson said on April 27, 2008 at 9:00 pm
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    This is good if you have a cheap Dell computer without much RAM but a decent CPU and Hard Drive space. Otherwise, if you don’t have any problems with FireFox, don’t worry about it.

  29. JXON said on February 26, 2008 at 8:12 pm
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    Right, it use the Virtual Ram to swap data, it could lead to a great performance drop, no one should ever use it!!!

  30. kalt said on February 15, 2008 at 10:14 am
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    I think you should also tick the CPU Time column.

  31. animal-testing-rocks.blogspot.com said on February 14, 2008 at 9:41 am
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    uh.. time to reconfigure your taskman so you can see a bit more of reality

    start taskman
    click view
    click select columns

    tick: Virtual Memory Size

    NOW take your “memory consumption” screen shots

    :roll:

  32. Steve Bovine said on February 3, 2008 at 2:57 pm
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    teddyp, no, you’re missing the point. How is forcing all active things in memory into VMem going to make firefox faster? Answer, it’s not.

    It’s repeatedly forcing a memory pressure warning in firefox so it dumps all non-active memory _at that point in time_ into VMem. But a second later such memory might need accessed, and so of instead of it being accessed from your fast RAM, it gets moved from VMem into your RAM again and then accessed, which is a lot slower.

  33. teddyp said on January 27, 2008 at 9:16 pm
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    SteveBovine, you’re missing the point. The program aims to make firefox faster, by reducing ram, and it does just that. It doesn’t claim to be a wonder drug.

    But it works fine for me…I just find that it crashes my Vi$ta so I have to run it in WinXP Compatibility mode.

  34. Maquete Eletronica Perspectiva Fortaleza said on January 23, 2008 at 10:02 pm
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    This program just put all RAM memory used to the Virtual memory…

  35. Hydreux said on January 17, 2008 at 5:05 am
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    i found a thread in the MZ forums regarding this topic.

    • http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=602648

  36. Syahid A. said on January 14, 2008 at 6:24 am
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    I offer to check out this on my PC. Will report if there is any difference later.

  37. Steve Bovine said on January 14, 2008 at 3:20 am
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    What a crock of shit. VMem value doesn’t change at all, and that’s the more important value.

  38. Andrie said on January 13, 2008 at 2:39 pm
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    I would personally say a NO to this for the time being. It consumes CPU instead of RAM. Every 5 seconds it!!!

  39. noris said on January 13, 2008 at 11:33 am
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    Should we use this program since I believe most of us has big enough RAM to be eaten by FF? To me its just annoying to see that FF has taken so many resources but I didn’t see much improvement running FF on safe mode either.

  40. Andrie said on January 13, 2008 at 1:23 am
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    At the outset I would like to clarify that I am not a wizard or something ¬ ¬ only use a function whose name is EmptyWorkingSet (Removes as many pages as possible from the working set of the specified process) and applied every 5 seconds in all instances Firefox processes forcing it to release unused memory…

    Excerpt from http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=es|en&u=http://felipex.net/2007/11/02/detalles-tecnicos-sobre-firefox-ultimate-optimizer/

  41. YK said on January 12, 2008 at 8:11 pm
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    Thanks Thinker, it seems you’re correct. However I believe this doesn’t mean the program is bad, somebody might find it useful if he is ready to sacrifice firefox speed to gain RAM for other programs. But not me :)

  42. saad said on January 12, 2008 at 7:45 pm
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    Yes martin.It eats your pc and a trich which it uses is that it enforces firefox to use some virtual memory

  43. Martin said on January 12, 2008 at 6:28 pm
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    the prob is that this website is not available at the moment lackfer

  44. Lackfer® said on January 12, 2008 at 5:54 pm
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    autor of Firefox Ultimate Optimizer is FelipEx
    http://felipex.net/2007/11/08/firefox-ultimate-optimizer-v11/

  45. caschy said on January 12, 2008 at 5:01 pm
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    It only disables FFs Ram Cache?

  46. Dante said on January 12, 2008 at 4:50 pm
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    If it eats your CPU, than it’s mostly likely just a virtual memory program. Instead of letting Firefox use RAM to run, it makes Firefox use the disk drive. Newer drives are probably so fast, you don’t notice the slow down.

  47. jumbo said on January 12, 2008 at 4:37 pm
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    is that possible?? wtf?

  48. exglade said on January 12, 2008 at 4:12 pm
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    I have used it for a very long time. But I found that it will eat your CPU but reduce memory usage. You can see the effect when you using a high memory but bad CPU computer.

  49. mace said on January 12, 2008 at 3:58 pm
    Reply

    how do i dl it?

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