Speed Up Firefox by Running It In RAM

Normally, Mozilla Firefox operates from your hard drive, but it's possible to run it completely in your system's memory (RAM). It speeds up your browsing because computers can read and write from RAM much faster than it can read and write from the hard drive. The following instructions will walk your through a configuration with Windows.

Steps

  1. Download and save Portable Firefox onto your Desktop (see Things You'll Need below). Double-click on the ZIP file and extract the contents of the archive to the folder "C:\PortableFirefox". You can use a different directory, but you will have to adapt the rest of this article to that directory.
  2. Download RAMDisk and save it to the same location as the ZIP file (see Things You'll Need below). Double-click RAMDisk.exe. This is a self-extracting archive. When asked where to save the extracted files, save them on your Desktop. This creates a directory called __RAMDisk.
  3. Open the __RAMDisk folder. Inside you will find a ZIP file named Installfiles.zip. Double click this file. Extract the contents of the archive to your Desktop. You should now have a folder on your desktop named INSTALL.
  4. Install the RAMDisk software.
    • Open Windows Control Panel (found by clicking Start > Control Panel). Switch the Control Panel to Classic View if it's not already. Now click the icon labeled Add New Hardware'. When the window opens, click Next. Windows will search for new hardware added to your computer. When it's finished, click Yes, I have already connected the hardware, and then click Next. You should now be looking at a long list of hardware available on your computer.

    • Scroll to the very bottom of the list and select Add a new hardware device and then click Next.
    • When the next window comes up, pick the second option, Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced). Then click Next.
    • On the next window, leave the selection "Show All Devices" and click Next.
    • On the next window, click the button Have Disk. A small window will pop up asking you to insert the manufacturer's installation disk. Click the Browse button and browse your way to the INSTALL folder that was created on your Desktop.
    • Once in that directory, select the RAMDisk.inf file. Click Open. Now that you're back at the pop up window, click OK.
    • Back to the main window, click Next. On the Ready to install window, click Next. Windows will throw up a window complaining that the hardware has not passed WHQL testing. Just click Continue Anyway.
    • Click Finish. If Windows says anything about restarting your computer, just say No. It's not necessary.
  5. Configure RAMDisk.
    • Back at the Control Panel, click the icon for System. When the window pops up, click the Hardware tab. Then click the Device Manager button.

    • You're now looking at all the devices installed on your computer. Scroll down the list down until you see RAM Disk. Click the + sign to open this tab. Now right click Ramdisk [ QSoft ], and select Properties.
    • A new window will open. Click the tab Ram Disk Properties. The options on this page are pretty self explanatory. You can set the drive letter that you want RAMDisk to emulate. In this case, pick B:. You can also set the size of the drive. 32 MB is plenty for Portable Firefox. You can also set the File system. Either file system will work fine.
    • Once you have set everything, click OK. Close all windows and the Control Panel. If you open My Computer, you will see you new RAM disk as whatever drive letter you chose. If you double click the drive, you will see that it's empty. If there are any files in there, just delete them.
  6. Create batch files. Your RAM disk are completely erased when you shut down Windows. You need two files to copy Firefox back into the RAM disk when Windows starts, and then to save settings, to copy everything from the RAM disk back onto the C drive. The first one copies everything from C:\portablefirefox to B:\firefox. The second one copies everything back from the B drive to the C drive.
    • Open Notepad (usually found at Start > All Programs > Accessories), and type in this line:

      • XCOPY C:\portablefirefox\*.* B:\firefox\ /E /Y /C
    • Save the file as C:\portablefirefox\load_firefox.bat. Under Save as type, select All Files.

    • Click New in Notepad. Create a new file and add this line:

      • XCOPY B:\firefox\*.* C:\portablefirefox\ /E /Y
    • Now save this file as C:\portablefirefox\save_firefox.bat. Again, Under Save as type, select All Files.
  7. Put a link to the first batch file in your Start Menu's Startup folder. This way the file is run every time Windows starts. You can also create a folder on the Start Menu called Shutdown (certain versions of Windows only), and place a link to the second batch file in that folder. That way everything is copied back to the C drive when Windows shuts down.
  8. Browse to C:\portablefirefox and double click the file load_firefox.bat. A command window opens showing you that Windows is copying all the files from C:\portablefirefox to B:\firefox.
  9. Open My Computer and open up the folder B:\firefox. Right click the file PortableFirefox.exe, and pick Send To > Desktop (Create shortcut). This will place a shortcut to Portable Firefox that you can click to run Firefox.

Tips

  • Once Firefox is running, you can follow the tips in the article How to Make Firefox Load Pages Faster to get even more speed from Firefox.
  • For running Firefox portable version in memory, add the following line to the firefox_load.bat file:



    The RamDrive location for the executable is "D:\Firefox" and the application name is "FirefoxPortable.exe". What this does is copy the files from my slow MicroSD card to the much faster RamDisk and then launch Firefox in MAXimized mode after loading.
  • UNTESTED: EXPERTS ONLY (FOR NOW): You may be able to automate the copying of Firefox Settings by listing the Copy To RAM script files in the Startup Script in GPEdit (Group Policy Editor), and the Copy To Harddisk in the Shutdown Script. You must have administrator rights, and you must have the correct version of Windows to run GPEdit (GPEdit is available on Windows 2000, XP Pro, Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2008. Specifically it is not available in Windows XP Home, Vista Home Basic, and Vista Home Premium).

Warnings

  • Remember, everything on the RAM disk is emptied when Windows shuts down. That means if the batch file save_firefox.bat isn't run before that, you will lose any saved passwords or extensions you've installed with PortableFirefox.

Things You'll Need

  • Portable Firefox - Portable Firefox is a stripped down and reconfigured version of Firefox designed to run off of a USB thumb drive. You can download the files from the Portable Firefox website.
  • RAMDisk for Windows - RAMDisk creates a fake disk on the Windows system that can be used just like any other hard drive, but it's completely running in your system's memory. You can download the files from the RAMDisk website.

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