Firefox users who are used to having fifteen or more tabs open while surfing the web, or perhaps tend to load up their browser with a bunch of open pages from their last session, will surely know the impact this can have in terms of performance. It may not be a major issue on powerful desktop PCs with processing muscle and memory to spare, but you can bet more modest rigs and most laptops will struggle trying to pull up a huge list of pages at the same time.
Luckily, there are ways heavy tab users can ease the memory-guzzling effect that their browsing habits can have on their systems – and today we’ll specifically mention two: using the BarTab extension or making a quick about:config tweak.
The aforementioned BarTab extension lightens Firefox’s memory load and prevents crashes by unloading tabs that you are currently not using but want to keep accessible. It can intercept when tabs are opened in the background or restored after a browser restart and will only load the content when the tab is actually visited. It also allows you to free memory by unloading already loaded tabs, either manually or automatically when they haven’t been used for a specified time.
Read: Tech Tip of the Week - Speed Up Firefox by Loading Tabs On-demand
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