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by secondcoming 1199 days ago
Firefox swamping the disk is already an issue. Mine has several gigabytes of random crap cached, and I'm not the only one.
2 comments
daneel_w 1199 days ago
I run desktop (not mobile) Firefox with an in-memory cache only. My opinion is that on-disk cache with several days (or weeks) old content is almost entirely useless, and that the most beneficial cache use is what you fetch/reuse through a single day of running browser.

Here's how you can "make the switch":

First of all, clear your disk cache entirely. Then, head into "about:config" and change accordingly:

  browser.cache.disk.enable -> false
  browser.cache.disk.smart_size.enabled -> false
  browser.cache.disk_cache_ssl -> false
  browser.cache.offline.enable -> false
  browser.cache.memory.enable -> true
  browser.cache.memory.capacity -> 512000
  browser.privatebrowsing.forceMediaMemoryCache -> true
The number 512000 is in kilobytes. Adjust to preference. Firefox will still do some caching to disk, but these settings stop the most pressing disk writes. You may confirm the change by visiting "about:cache".
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KyeRussell 1199 days ago
“Several gigabytes” for a browser cache is not abnormal, nor “swamping the disk”. Welcome to the web.
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makapuf 1199 days ago
Nowadays "several gigabytes" can also be read as "almost a percent" for a 1TB disk, which for an app so central is not outrageous to me. Well maybe it could be less for smaller 256G disks.
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michaelt 1199 days ago
Right now, today, Apple will sell you a brand new phone with only 64GB of storage. And that's for users whose budget stretches to a brand new iphone - plenty of people spend less.

The modern web isn't just for people browsing from high-spec workstations and gaming PCs.

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