Taming FireFox
I started using FireFox a while back mainly because my geek friends said it was the preferred browser. Who am I to argue with certified technocrats?
I like FireFox. I admit that for me, a browser is a browser - I'm more interested in the content of browsing that specific behaviors, as long as the behavior doesn't get in my way. FireFox is beloved of the geek squad mainly because it is highly manageable - you can do a great deal with it to make it behave the way you want. You can even make it look the way you want.
For most of us, of course, this is not relevant. We're not likely to fool around with the settings in order to tweak otherwise acceptable, if not ideal, behavior. Unfortunately, I have found that in at least two instances, I was forced to fiddle with FireFox's settings in order to avoid annoyances, or worse, problems, with its behavior.
The first instance was the way FireFox handles downloads. With IE, when you request a download from the Internet, you are asked if you want to open or save the downloaded file, and if you select save, you indicate where you want to save the file. FireFox, by default, simply downloads everything to your desktop. At first, of course, you don't know this and are left wondering - as we did in the bad old days of the Internet - where the silly file you just downloaded went. Even after you discover that the downloaded files are on your desktop, you are likely annoyed because you don't necessarily want them there!
The remedy for this is:
Go to Tools/Options/Main, and look for Downloads in the second section of this pane. Check the box next to "Always ask me where to save files."
The second major issue I encountered with FireFox was more serious. I began to notice that my computer's performance was, at times, unacceptable. Simple commands would take minutes to be performed. Pages would take forever to refresh on screen. Even Control/Alt/Delete (to find out what was eating up the processor) took a long time to react.
Windows Task Manager (invoked with Control/Alt/Delete) indicated that my CPU usage was at nearly 100%. Checking Processes, I discovered that FireFox had grabbed 160,000K of memory!
I had read that FireFox was guilty of what is called a "memory leak." A memory "leak" isn't a leak at all, but rather a "grab and refuse to release." Normally, when memory is allocated for the performance of a computer task, it is also released when that task is finished. FireFox simply does not release memory, so, over time, more and more of your system's memory is allocated to FireFox, and consequently, unavailable for anything else. The result will be very slow response time, or even a freeze.
Supposedly, there is a way to fix this. According to the posters at Free Republic (http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm):
1. Open a new tab. Type "about:config" (no quotes) into the box and hit enter/click Go.
2. Right-click anywhere, select New, then Integer. In the dialog prompt that appears, type:
browser.cache.memory.capacity
3. Click OK. Another dialog prompt will appear. This is where you decide how much memory to allocate to Firefox. Experts suggest no less than 8MB, and of course, not more than the amount of RAM your system has available. They recommend you start with 16MB. So enter:
16384
(Why 16384 instead of 16000? Because computers use base-12 counting. Thus 16 megabytes = 16384 bytes. Likewise, if you want to double that and allocate 32MB, you'd enter 32768.)
4. Click OK to close the dialog box, then close all instances of Firefox and restart.
I have now implemented this in my FireFox. I will let you know whether, a few days from now, I'm still using it, or I've limped back, defeated, to IE.
I started using FireFox a while back mainly because my geek friends said it was the preferred browser. Who am I to argue with certified technocrats?
I like FireFox. I admit that for me, a browser is a browser - I'm more interested in the content of browsing that specific behaviors, as long as the behavior doesn't get in my way. FireFox is beloved of the geek squad mainly because it is highly manageable - you can do a great deal with it to make it behave the way you want. You can even make it look the way you want.
For most of us, of course, this is not relevant. We're not likely to fool around with the settings in order to tweak otherwise acceptable, if not ideal, behavior. Unfortunately, I have found that in at least two instances, I was forced to fiddle with FireFox's settings in order to avoid annoyances, or worse, problems, with its behavior.
The first instance was the way FireFox handles downloads. With IE, when you request a download from the Internet, you are asked if you want to open or save the downloaded file, and if you select save, you indicate where you want to save the file. FireFox, by default, simply downloads everything to your desktop. At first, of course, you don't know this and are left wondering - as we did in the bad old days of the Internet - where the silly file you just downloaded went. Even after you discover that the downloaded files are on your desktop, you are likely annoyed because you don't necessarily want them there!
The remedy for this is:
Go to Tools/Options/Main, and look for Downloads in the second section of this pane. Check the box next to "Always ask me where to save files."
The second major issue I encountered with FireFox was more serious. I began to notice that my computer's performance was, at times, unacceptable. Simple commands would take minutes to be performed. Pages would take forever to refresh on screen. Even Control/Alt/Delete (to find out what was eating up the processor) took a long time to react.
Windows Task Manager (invoked with Control/Alt/Delete) indicated that my CPU usage was at nearly 100%. Checking Processes, I discovered that FireFox had grabbed 160,000K of memory!
I had read that FireFox was guilty of what is called a "memory leak." A memory "leak" isn't a leak at all, but rather a "grab and refuse to release." Normally, when memory is allocated for the performance of a computer task, it is also released when that task is finished. FireFox simply does not release memory, so, over time, more and more of your system's memory is allocated to FireFox, and consequently, unavailable for anything else. The result will be very slow response time, or even a freeze.
Supposedly, there is a way to fix this. According to the posters at Free Republic (http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm):
1. Open a new tab. Type "about:config" (no quotes) into the box and hit enter/click Go.
2. Right-click anywhere, select New, then Integer. In the dialog prompt that appears, type:
browser.cache.memory.capacity
3. Click OK. Another dialog prompt will appear. This is where you decide how much memory to allocate to Firefox. Experts suggest no less than 8MB, and of course, not more than the amount of RAM your system has available. They recommend you start with 16MB. So enter:
16384
(Why 16384 instead of 16000? Because computers use base-12 counting. Thus 16 megabytes = 16384 bytes. Likewise, if you want to double that and allocate 32MB, you'd enter 32768.)
4. Click OK to close the dialog box, then close all instances of Firefox and restart.
I have now implemented this in my FireFox. I will let you know whether, a few days from now, I'm still using it, or I've limped back, defeated, to IE.
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