Hello Readers,
Like many other applications, Firefox uses the small yet powerful SQLite Database for storing all its information. SQLite database file is located on the harddisk itself. Over the time, the data stored in the database grows to a large amount. It also includes irrelevant or unwanted information.
This causes Firefox to work extremely slow & you can see it hanging every now and then. So we have a way to speed up your Firefox by putting SQLite Database as well as your Profile in the RAMDisk.
By adding the SQLite database in RAMDisk, you can speed up its performance to make it 10 to 20 times faster than your harddisk.
We will use Dataram for creating our RAMDisk. You may download it here.
Here is one example for doing the same.
1. Download the latest version of Dataram RAMDisk and install it.
2. Simultaneously press WIN + R to bring up the Run command.
3. Type %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles and hit Enter. You should see a folder with random characters followed by .default (For example, 89ns5tbp.default) and that is your Firefox’s profile folder.
4. Right click on the folder and select Properties. Take note of the Size of the folder.
5. Run RAMDisk Configuration Utility from the Start Menu.
6. Set the Disk Size which is the amount of space that you want to create. Do not set it too high because the number will be deducted from your memory. I personally set it to 300MB as I have 2000MB of RAM and my Firefox’s profile folder is only 133MB in size.
7. Select FAT32 Partition. FAT32 is faster than NTFS in small volumes because the structure is simpler and the system does not have to check permissions since there is no controls regulation.
8. Click Start RAMDisk button.
9. Go to Load and Save tab. Check the 3 option, “Load Disk Image at Startupâ€, “Save Disk Image on Shutdown†and “AutoSaveâ€.
10. Click the Save Disk Image Now button and select OK. Step 9 and 10 is very important because if you don’t save the image, your Firefox profile will be lost when you reboot your computer.
11. Finally, click File from the menubar, select Save Settings and click OK.
You’ve successfully set up RAMDisk and there should be a new drive letter on My Computer with only 300MB of disk space or the amount that you’ve set. Now you will have to copy your Firefox’s profile folder to the RAMDisk and configure Firefox to load your profile from there.
1. Simultaneously press WIN + R to bring up the Run command.
2. Type %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini and hit Enter.
3. A notepad should appear with profiles.ini being loaded. Edit the path like the example below and save. Replace the “Profiles/†at Path with the drive letter that has been created by Dataram RAMDisk.
Change Path=Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default to Path=E:\xxxxxxxx.default
4. Again simultaneously press WIN + R to bring up the Run command.
5. Type %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles and hit Enter.
6. Copy the xxxxxxxx.default folder to the new drive letter created by RAMDisk.
Thats it, enjoy a Super Fast Firefox !!
Source: http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2009/12/09/superspeed-firefox-by-putting-profile-and-sqlite-database-in-ramdisk/
Kind of useful, better than no speedup.