How to make Firefox faster on SSDs

[x88x]

So, recently I started to notice that Firefox was getting really laggy running off my SSD. The odd thing is that no other programs were lagging, just FF. So, after much searching, moving the cache onto a RAMdisk to not much improvement, and more searching, I finally found this:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...p/t-56532.html

Before I followed these steps (even after moving my cache onto my RAMdisk), FF was hanging for about half a second every 2-3 seconds. It made me feel like I was working on a freakin P3... Now it's blazing fast, like it's supposed to be

A couple notes to people wanting to follow it:

If you make your profile on the RAMdisk, step 2 is not necessary (and as a security person, I would highly recommend against it) because the file it's talking about is in your profile.

They make step 4 needlessly complicated. An easier method (IMO) is to follow steps a-c in their instructions, then just delete everything from the new profile directory, move everything from your profile into the new directory, and modify the profile.ini file to remove the old profile and move the new one up to 'Profile0'.

For my RAMdisk, I use FarStone Virtual Hard Drive Pro. They have a 30-day free trial, which I'm using now, but it's a really nice utility, totally worth the $30 they're charging. It even supports automatically backing up the RAMdisk on a schedule basis (I have it set to do it every 15 minutes) as well as when you shut down the computer. This removes the need for the AutoIt script on the OCZ site I linked, making the whole process much more automated and just generally easier. I would highly recommend it.

[x88x]

Really old thread, I know...and apparently not all that interesting since nobody replied to it. But just in case anyone's interested, I recently discovered that Virtual Hard Drive Pro (which I ended up just using in trial mode forever) had stopped backing the drive up...which was problematic whenever I had to restart since I run Firefox and F@H stuff off it... So, figuring that they just locked that feature out of the trial mode at some point, I went to buy it....only to discover that they don't sell it or any similar product any more! Oh noes!

...actually, that ended up being a good thing, because I found something better.

Now I'm using the free version of DataRAM's RAMDisk program. It does everything I liked about VHD and it's legitimately free. Always a good thing. IIRC, the only difference between the free version and the $15 paid version is that the free version has a cap of 4GB drive size. ...but since I only use a 512MB drive, that's not really a problem for me.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-a...ftware/ramdisk

[mDust]

I've been using that for a few months now. It works great, is easy, and, best of all, free! Can't beat it. I've been planning on getting another 8 gigs of ram and getting the pro version to remove the cap. I currently have BF2 and some system stuff on the ramdisk and I've yet to have a problem. BF2 loads instantly and is wicked fast offline...but my net connection is a huge bottleneck in loading multiplayer maps.

I wish there were a way to install everything including OS on ram...maybe one day...

[AmEv]

Soon, we WILL need 3TB+ RAM... :megaeek:

[x88x]

I wish there were a way to install everything including OS on ram...maybe one day...

Well, there are a few methods. Either by loading a basic kernel on SSD/HDD and immediately mounting a RAMdrive (I don't know a way to do this in Windows though...), or shell out massive moneys for one of those hardware RAMdrives.

[AmEv]

Or keeping your machine on 24/7, configure it to copy your SSD contents to RAM, hook up a UPS, when shutdown commences is when it saves to SSD.

[Twigsoffury]

I just use google chrome.

[mDust]

Well, there are a few methods. Either by loading a basic kernel on SSD/HDD and immediately mounting a RAMdrive (I don't know a way to do this in Windows though...), or shell out massive moneys for one of those hardware RAMdrives.

Nah, I want a custom UEFI that supports/initializes my ramdisk before OS even starts to load. I'd have a dedicated SSD RAID or revodrive type disk chuck the C: into ram and then boot from there. I just need to wait until 64+GB of ram is fairly common...

[billygoat333]

Gargh... lol I was looking for that program you just linked me forever. haha couldn't for the life of me remember what it was called. Thanks!!