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Firemin, Weightloss Program for Mozilla Firefox

I have been using Mozilla Firefox for years, when it started out it was in great shape, things opened without any lag, it could run for hours without breaking down and it would always smile at you. Plus, it had some really sexy curves. Over the years, I have seen it go from being a Top Super Model to a KFC girl. The transformation wasn’t quick, it happened in small updates. As my system grew powerful, the lean fit Firefox starting adding bulk. It would leak gas from time to time; it would freeze while opening a tab and the worst of all it won’t stop eating. Even when I close the tab, it would still have something in its mouth.

In short, it was a nightmare; even right now my keystrokes have a lag. It’s seems I am typing in a word processor that is powered by Pentium II. This sort of lag is unacceptable especially considering I am using a fairly powerful system with ample about of RAM and processing power. I can go about my rant about this and that, but the fact remains I am having issues with Firefox. It could be due to some Add-ons I am using but it’s most likely because of something else.  If Firefox was 64bit, I might have some luck with the memory problem, with 16GB of RAM I can spare a few gigs for Firefox but the problem is, after it reaches 2GB it starts to stall badly and I have to shut it down.

And if I keep it running for long, which I am required to do, it would start adding up weight until it reaches the 1.5 ~2 GB mark and after that, it’s back to the drawing board. This problem is recurring. It happens with other browsers as well but it’s quite limited. Right now I have to use Google Chrome, SR Iron and IE9 along with Opera to meet my needs. Using X-marks I am able to use my passwords and manage different websites but whenever I am doing a bulk post operation, I have to use Firefox because it has some nifty add-ons but then I get lagged out.

I have tested Chrome by opening 57 tabs with articles in them and I have edited each article in Word press. It did use some RAM but it was responsive and that’s something I want. Quick response, even a small lag distracts the user, in this case whenever I am trying to remove a word I have to guess how many backspace keystrokes I am pressing because it will always delete the other words if I am not careful. Sometimes when I type too fast it would take some time for the word to appear.

I don’t even have 10 tabs open.

Moving on to the point, I have been using an Add-on to help me keep Firefox stable. What it does is simple, it restricts Firefox RAM usage. So, basically I can keep Firefox open without worrying about anything. It was easily clear the extra RAM usage and keep the RAM usage under 300MB. The tool is called Firemin, it’s small and it actually works.

You can download it from here.  On their website they do mention the function Firemin uses to keep Firefox under control. It’s actually the exact thing I required, a way to tell Firefox to free up space it has saved up for closed tabs. In short, if you close a tab Firefox tends to hang on to the memory used by that page in case you undo it. You can try it yourself, simply close the tab and reopen it again.

Now we need to clear up some confusion about Firemin. Firstly, Firemin uses a safe API function called EmptyWorkingSet that basically forces the process (in this case Firefox) to use less memory. Other words, tells Firefox to give back some of the system memory it’s hanging on to. For those of you who are a little more technically minded, you can read more about it here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms682606%28v=vs.85%29.aspx. Using this function will sometimes result in a slight performance decrease measured in milliseconds , but I do mean slight, the chance of you noticing the performance decrease is almost zero.

All I can say is, I have been using this piece of tool for almost two weeks now. It hasn’t given me any problems, sure the memory usage is low but I still have this LAG issue. It also has a really awesome function that can optmize Firefox DB. Just close Firefox and click Optimize Firefox and it will automatically optimize Firefox SQLITE DB files.

On a side note they have this other Add-on that I just discovered while reading their website blog. It’s used for Digital Forensic in other words it uses Google and TinyEye technology to find your images or copies of your images. This is actually quite a scary thought but the tool is quite useful.

You can download it here.

 

So, there you have it. If I have some time I will write about some other tools in the near future. The progress on the website and the community has been slow mainly because the team is busy with IRL work but we’re still alive and kicking.

 

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