One trick to solve FireFox's memory consumption problem

Since version 1.5, the serious issue of high memory consumption by FireFox seems to have upset quite a few loyal FFFs (FireFox Fans). Although Mozilla officials repeatedly deny the existence of such a problem, I believe users aren’t fools and don’t just spread bad words about FireFox for fun. My second browser is FireFox, though I’m not a die-hard fan of FireFox, in comparison, TheWorld browser based on the IE engine has an advantage in terms of speed and memory usage. But if you really don’t want to give up FireFox, there’s a very simple method that can help reduce FireFox's memory usage to a minimum. I tried it myself and it seems pretty effective; here's how:

Ryan, who is basically a master-level FireFox expert, frequently brings first-hand FireFox updates and related tips. I strongly recommend FireFox enthusiasts check out his site (remember to use a proxy). Getting back to the point, this method is extremely simple, requiring no additional software installation—just a few steps. I'll demonstrate using FireFox 1.5.0.1 Simplified Chinese Edition as an example:

1. Open FireFox and type "about:config" into the address bar.

2. Right-click, choose New -> Boolean.

3. In the pop-up box, enter "config.trim_on_minimize".

4. Then select True.

5. Restart FireFox.

After restarting, minimize FireFox and press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the Task Manager. Is FireFox’s memory usage now below 10MB? Yes, this simple optimization allows FireFox to release extra memory when minimized or maximized; also, some memory will be freed when refreshing a webpage, thus achieving the goal of lower memory usage. This is actually a feature already included by default in IE7 and Opera, but FireFox hasn't added it yet. Future versions are expected to improve this situation.

Of course, if you don’t feel like your FireFox consumes too much memory or if your computer has 2GB of RAM, then there’s no need to perform this optimization.