Firefox cache to another drive. Configuring the Google Chrome cache using group policies
Good day, friends! In today’s article I would like to tell you what the browser cache is and why it is needed, as well as how to increase its size in Yandex and move the folder with it to another location on the computer.
Browser cache - what is it?
There is already an article on the site. It provides a definition for this term. Also, it says in which folder on the computer the folder we are interested in is located.
Information caching is provided in all modern Internet browsers. Thanks to this, the user can play online games, watch movies, and also save consumed Internet traffic.
When you visit the site, a copy of the page is stored in a cache on the local disk of your computer. Let's say you left this site by following a hyperlink and then returned to it again. In this case, its loading will be faster, since the browser will take the necessary files from the computer, and will not contact the server.
When watching a movie or video, you probably noticed that if you pause it, a gray bar will continue to run in the playback line. This means that the film is downloaded to the computer, that is, cached. Once fully downloaded, you can even download it from there.
The cache file on your computer has a certain size. And when free space runs out, old entries are deleted and new ones are written.
You can reduce its size if you do not have enough free space on your computer. If you want to download, for example, a movie to this folder and then save it from it, or you need to save Internet traffic, then it is better to enlarge this file.
How to increase cache memory in Yandex browser
This cannot be done in the browser itself, since such a function is simply missing. To increase the cache size, find the Yandex browser shortcut on your desktop and right-click on it. Then select Properties from the context menu.
If you don’t have a shortcut, then go to the “Start” menu, or to the “Program Files” folder on drive C: and find the .exe file in it.
A window with properties on the “Shortcut” tab will open. Here we need the "Object" field. Place the cursor at the end of the line, press space and enter: —disk-cache-size=Volume. There are two small hyphens in front without a space. Replace "Volume" with the required value in bytes. For example, 1 GB = 1073741824 bytes. Be careful not to delete the contents of the line itself, otherwise you will need to create a new shortcut.
Don't forget to click "Apply" and then "OK".
How to change the storage location of the cache folder
When installing the Yandex browser, the user does not have the opportunity to specify in which directory on the computer to store the cache folder. Accordingly, everything will be stored on the system disk. If you don’t have too much space on your system disk, you can move this folder to another disk partition, or even to another hard drive (if there are several of them installed).
I specifically looked for this topic on Habré, but found only a recipe for a ready-made portable Firefox.
Its disadvantages are known - it is not official, therefore it is updated with delays, even skipping some intermediate versions.
Therefore, I decided to write about my little experience. Already done at home, on a laptop, at work - it works great.
The task was to transfer the FF itself and the profile to a virtual disk for the fastest possible work.
I will describe the home version as the most sophisticated.
On the machine (win 7) there is a virtual disk from DATARAM, 1 GB in size - just for such purposes - to speed up and partially encrypt.
The virtual disk image is located on an encrypted (true type) disk.
Once a day, the virtual disk image is transferred to backup. Also, the virtual disk is saved when the computer is turned off.
The very first option, which I did a year ago, was to simply move the folder with the profile and the folder with Firefox itself to a virtual disk, leaving ntfs links on it. The solution takes 5 seconds, but it’s not attractive because when working with files (for example, a cache with a bunch of small pictures), the hard drive from which the path begins will still constantly jerk.
Well, constantly remembering about links is also not good.
Therefore, we make the most complete transfer possible:
Transferring the executable part:
When installing a new Firefox, everything is extremely easy - we immediately install it on a virtual disk.
When transferring, copy the folder " x:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\" to our virtual disk, and just run firefox.exe from him. It will immediately offer us to become the default browser. We say “Yes” and edit the call shortcuts where we have them (desktop, quick launch panel, etc..).
We go through the registry and correct the path in several places. It seemed to me that most of the keys belonged to outdated versions, and the most necessary ones were updated themselves when we reassigned the default browser, but I still recommend checking the registry - you can search directly for the full path " x:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox".
Rename the old folder, for example, “Mozilla Firefox.old”, when the experiment is completed successfully, it can be deleted.
Now transfer your profile
In this folder (“x:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox”) lies profiles.ini, which describes what profiles there are and where they are located. It was not possible to transfer profiles.ini itself so that when FF starts nothing but the virtual disk would twitch :(. But you can specify firefox.exe -Profile in the launch shortcut (thanks)
After editing, profiles.ini looks like this:
StartWithLastProfile=1 // start with the last running profile (1), or open the profile manager window (0)// profile0, profile1, profilexxx
Name=USER // profile name
IsRelative=0 // path to the profile is relative or absolute. Set it to 0
Path=V:\Profiles\Mozilla\user // specify our path to the profile
Default=1 // this profile will be called by default
The profile itself is in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles, we actually copy it to our virtual disk, and the folder %APPDATA%\Mozilla rename to %APPDATA%\Mozilla.old. Later we will remove it completely.
Testing
It starts almost instantly, before this it took 3-5 seconds to start on the desktop.
The entire cache is stored on a virtual disk, so the hdd(sdd) do not twitch during surfing - for those who do not need a speed increase, but feel sorry for SDD, you can also take note.
My Dataram is configured to dump an image backup once a day - that’s more than enough for me.
During the process of moving, I found a bunch of outdated profiles, either from old versions of Mozilla, or something else, although I am extremely careful about what I install on my cars, and at some point I was confused that the transferred profile was the same size much less than those that have not been used for a long time, but all the necessary information (tabs, bookmarks, passwords, settings) was transferred correctly, therefore, in addition, unused garbage was also cleared. Now the profile takes up about 50 megabytes, plus 50 megabytes it takes up FF, so especially for surfing, the size of the virtual disk can be made much smaller.
After the test, you can delete the .old folders.
For some time I was afraid of virtual disk glitches, so my old folders hung there for several months, but were never needed.
P.S. By the way, Opera was transferred in the same way, but for some reason it continues to open for several seconds. I don’t know what it’s connected with.
P.P.S. “Portable” is specifically mentioned in quotation marks in the topic. because during the transfer process I had to go into the registry, and therefore this option is not purely portable. But if you mean only the profile, then there is no question.
Have a good mood everyone! Friends, if you remember, I showed you how you can organize the transfer of temporary Windows files to a virtual disk. Thus, we significantly relieve the hard drive and speed up the operation of the entire system.
So now let's do it Chrome cache migration and Firefox on RAMDisk. These two Internet browsers are very popular, so this article will be useful to many users of the global web.
Well, let's get started. And first in line will be Google Chrome. First, we need to move the existing cache folders to a new storage location so as not to lose any data. To do this, right-click on the Start icon and select Run.
After this, you need to enter this special command.
- %userprofile%\\ local settings\\ application data\\ google\\ chrome
In the next step, right-click on the Google Chrome shortcut on the desktop and select "Properties".
Now you need to move the cursor to the end of the line "Object", put one space, and then enter the following combination:
- -- user-data-dir="F:\\User Data"
Where F is the letter of the virtual disk. That is, it turns out that this is the path along which the folders we just transferred are located. That's all, brothers, the Chrome browser cache transfer was a success. But it is important to understand that this scheme will only work when you launch the program through a shortcut where a special parameter is specified.
Well, now let's move on to the no less popular Mozilla Firefox. Here, to move data to RAMDisk, you will need to do a little more steps, although everything is basically done by analogy. So, run the Run system utility again and enter the following command into its line.
- %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
After this, a folder with the extension will open . default, in which the profile parameters are stored. Again, we move it to a new location, that is, to a virtual disk in the computer’s RAM.
But this is not all the activities that need to be done using this utility. Now enter the following command like this.
- %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini
A small file will open in which you should specify a new path for storing cache files (parameter " Path " ) and be sure to correct the value of the line " IsRelative " to zero. To avoid mistakes, look carefully at the screenshot below. Also don't forget to save your changes.
So, the system settings seem to be over. Now you need to tell the Mozilla browser itself where its current cache is stored. To do this, launch the program and enter the following parameter in the address bar.
- about: config
Then right-click anywhere and select "New - Line". Next, in the setting name we write the following.
- browser. cache. disk.parent_directory
And the value, in fact, will be the path to the virtual disk of the computer. With this all settings are completed, all that remains is to restart the browser and check whether transferring the Firefox cache to RAMDisk worked.
To conclude the article, I would also like to add that the settings that were applied to Chrome are suitable for the entire family of browsers on the engine without any problems Chromium, on which By the way, such popular developments as Yandex are based. Browser and Amigo.
And at this point the post comes to an end, if there are any unclear points, ask questions in the comments. Now, as always, let's watch another interesting video.
Today, browsers use a variety of means to speed up the loading of sites, but the main one is the cache. Browser system files are stored in a certain folder on your hard drive, forming a cache that allows you to speed up page loading and save traffic by loading some images, css styles, etc. not from the server on which the site is located, but from the computer’s hard drive, on which the same pictures and other files from the sites were saved during previous visits.
We have previously discussed why it is needed periodically (before moving it, you need to clean it in the previous place). There are different situations, for example, the system disk has a small volume, regularly cleaning it is useless and impractical, so in order not to clog it, the cache folder can be moved to another logical drive.
How to move the cache to another location in Chromium browsers
A lot of people work on the popular Chromium engine (WebKit): Google Chrome, Opera (version 15 and higher), Yandex Browser, [email protected], Nichrome and others. Therefore, for all of the programs listed, one instruction will be relevant, shown below using Google Chrome as an example.
Right click on shortcut and open Properties.
In line Object will be written:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"
Add to the end of the line separated by space:
--disk-cache-dir="D:\ChromeCache"
Here ChromeCache is the name of the folder, you can specify your own. We save the changes, launch the shortcut and see: a new folder has been created at the address we specified.
Here it is necessary to clarify one nuance. It is advisable to register a new cache address for all browser shortcuts and .exe files. If you register the address only for a shortcut on the desktop, and launch the browser through the link in the Start menu, then everything will work as before.
Changing the cache storage location in Mozilla FireFox
Open FireFox and in the address bar enter about:config and press Enter. We agree with the humorous message about voiding the warranty.
A window with various settings and their parameters will open. Right-click and select from the menu New - String.
Enter the name of the setting: browser.cache.disk.parent_directory
Then the meaning: D:\Cache\
Then add another parameter in the same way: New - String
Name: browser.cache.offline.parent_directory
Meaning: D:\Cache\(must match the first one)
Opera
In Opera it’s even simpler: in the address bar we enter about:config or opera:config. In the list we find User Prefs and choose Cache Directory4, where let’s change the standard one to the desired one, for example D:\Cache\
You can delete the browser and install it again - this is one of the ways to do this for an inexperienced user.
In this case, the user of the Google browser will lose most of the data that was not associated with the account and was located in the disk memory cache.
But in this article we will describe a sequence of actions that will allow even an inexperienced computer user to transfer browser data to the desired disk.
Reasons for installing (transferring) a browser from Google
Basically, such actions are resorted to if problems arise with the operation and stability of the computer, but there are also the following less significant reasons for which it is also worth installing the browser on a different drive:
- The memory of the disk on which Google Chrome is installed is full, and the second disk has predominantly a larger amount of free space;
- In order to optimize operation and save disk memory for other processes and programs;
This transfer of the Chrome browser will extend the life of your RAM and SSD as a whole and will free up space for the correct operation of the program individually and as a whole of the entire computer. So you can start transferring the Chrome browser from Google to another drive according to the points below.
Find out the size and location of the browser cache from Google
First, let’s find out exactly where the Chrome cache is stored and its size in order to make sure that the “root of all evil” lies in the browser, and not in another program that can also slow down the speed of the computer and freeze its processes. To do this, find a folder called “Google Chrome” in the root of the disk. This can be done through a program search engine or simply by following the browser location bar from the desktop.
In Windows 7, Google Chrome is located by default at the following address: C:\Users\your_profile_name\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Cache. But it may differ from yours and should not be used as a guide. 
Changing the shortcut - the first step
If, after all, the Google browser takes up a large size and needs to be transferred to another disk, first change the browser shortcut:
We also recommend limiting the new cache space to the cache size. This can be done by adding this parameter separated by a space – “–disk-cache-size=314572810” (this is a 300 megabyte limit). Or, if you don’t want to have cache memory at all, set the value to “1”.
But when you open the browser and check the folder, it does not turn out to be the folder for saving the cache and the native folder for Google Chrome. This is because we haven't fixed the path registry yet.
Editing the registry to transfer the browser
Of course, in order for our new folder for the Google Chrome browser to start using that space as the main one, it is necessary to change its registry. This move is made using the following algorithm:
If you do not understand what the final command will be that needs to be written in the registry, then here is an example: “C:\Users\your_profile_name\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –disk-cache-dir=” D:\program\Google Chrome” –disk-cache-size=314572810 — “%1″.
"–disk-cache-size=314572800" is added if you wish to limit the amount of cache space. If this is not needed, then it will look like this: “C:\Users\your_profile_name\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –disk-cache-dir=”D:\programm\Google Chrome” – “%1”.
These steps are only suitable for Windows 7, 8, 10. For other operating systems, use other methods of installing Google Chrome on another drive. But other operating systems are used extremely rarely and there is no need to talk about all platforms in one article.
