New Firefox web browser on Windows

CHFA has deployed Firefox 1.01 to Windows XP computers in the College. In addition to the security fixes that Mozilla.org
built into the program, CHFA has changed the behavior of the program that will increase the speed at which web pages load.

If you have not used Firefox before - the configuration will already be set to use a new folder on the computer hard disk named "Local Storage" to keep cached copies of webpages you visit. This is set to use up to 512MB of disk space.

Previously, and for all that have used Firefox before - we used the default Firefox configuration that keeps all your settings and the cached copies of web pages in your "Firefox profile" located in c:\documents and settings\%username%\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
Due to CHFA using roaming user profiles that keep your settings on a server to allow you to have the same settings at any CHFA computer - we had to limit the cache to 4MB (otherwise your login times would take hours to copy all these cached web pages). Having a larger cache means more web page components (icons, pictures) don't have to be pulled through the Internet each time you visit the same web page -- they are already on your computer.

For users that have used Firefox before - you can modify your personal preferences to use the "Local Storage" folder and increase your cache size from 4MB to 512MB:

Locate your "prefs.js" file - this is located in c:\documents and settings\%username%\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\"randomname.default"\prefs.js

If you cannot find this, Windows is probably configured to hide hidden folders for you (this is the default for Windows). You can display the hidden Application Data folder by clicking on Tools - Folder Options - View tab - check the dot besides "Show hidden files and folders" then click OK.

To set your cache to 512MB, change the cache.disk.capacity line to:
user_pref("browser.cache.disk.capacity", 512000);

To use the c:\Local Storage location (note ther are TWO backslashes in this line) add this line:
user_pref("browser.cache.disk.parent_directory", "C:\\Local Storage");


Information posted by Chris Conklin, 3/10/2005 5:14:19 PM.