clipped from: computerworld.com   
12. Limit Firefox's use of RAM

Does Firefox use up too much of your RAM? Teach it to behave by limiting the amount of RAM it uses. To do it:


  1. Type about:config into your address bar and hit Enter.

  2. In the Filter text box, at the top of the page, type browser.cache.

  3. Double-click the "browser.cache.memory.capacity" entry.

  4. The default is 50000. If you don't have a lot of memory on your system, for example, between 512MB and 1GB, change the number to 15000 and click OK.