Firefox has a well-deserved reputation for flexibility, customizability and… massive, possibly even embarrassing, memory usage. While occasional sluggishness can be an inconvenience, for many, using any other browser is unthinkable. Why?

Because Firefox allows you to interface with the larger world in ways that no mere browser can match. With Firefox as the platform, you can add extensions that block ads, control animations, refine tab control, read news feeds, run arcane specialized searches, hide your identity at the click of a button, automatically reload some pages while leaving others alone and pretty much anything else you can imagine.

Firefox doesn’t simply change the way you browse. It redefines the concept. “I wish it would…” becomes “Mine does.”

At Email Battles, we beat the heck out of Firefox with hundreds of pages daily, 18 extensions, tens of open tabs, and no downtime for days at a stretch.

The doggoned thing is addictive. Once you’ve assembled the combination that fits your individual needs, vanilla browsers feel stultifying.

And amazingly, it’s all free. But while Firefox and its extensions are all free in a dollars and cents kinda way, you do pay a price. As you heap on the features, it gets slower and slower and… slower.

When that happens, you need to clear out the clutter. Start by going to [Tools][Extensions]. Uninstall every extension you don’t use. Then disable the extensions you rarely use. You can always re-enable them when you need them. And between uses, you’ll have more horsepower for your work.

While you’re at it, download our favorite memory and performance enhancers for Firefox: AniDisable, NoScript, Flashblock, PDF Download and Tabbrowser Preferences.

Although none of them are particularly flashy, together they enhance your surfing while simultaneously making it friendlier and more secure.

AniDisable keeps irritating animations in banner ads from running, or limits them to running once. By adding it to your context menu, you can toggle it on/off with a quick right-click of your mouse.

Just so you know… If you want to block all animations all the time without AniDisable, you type about:config in your address bar, find image.animation_mode, and change the value to none.

NoScript gives you granular control of javascript, Java, Flash and other plugins. As these are among Firefox’s greatest sources for memory leaks and security problems, NoScript provides a friendlier environment than simply blocking everything. You can whitelist sites on the fly. NoScript’s only problem is user frustration over too many choices. We’ve noticed that a number of users end out turning it off.

When that happens, give them Flashblock. It prevents flash content from downloading until you want it. Then simply click the Flash logo in the space where the animation will play. You can easily whitelist sites by right-clicking for your context menu. Flashblock will not work if you don’t allow javascript.

PDF Download helps you get control of those pesky, memory-hogging PDF files. Among other things, this handy tool lets you save PDF files to disk, or read them with an outside viewer, instead of forcing Firefox to read them. Once you’ve saved your PDF, read it outside Firefox with your highly optimized PDF viewer.

Tabbrowser Preferences has many wonderful convenience features. Choose the Restore the last tab session option to get a leg-up on Firefox memory problems. Then, when your computer gets a little slow, shut down Firefox, saunter over to the coffee pot, refill your mug, and restart Firefox.

The coffee run gives Firefox plenty of time to clear itself out. (Important Note: If you do not drink coffee, do not attempt this maneuver. It has not been tested in a caffiene-free environment.)

Once Firefox has finished loading your default home page, you’ll see a popup window:

[Tabbrowser Preferences screenshot. Email Battles]

Click the [Close tab] button. All your old tabs will come back, just as they were when your mug was empty.

How often should you reset Firefox? Depends on what you’re running. Once a day does it for us. Try it and let us know how it works for you.

Ben Goodger at Inside Firefox says a lot of the memory gobbling is due to automatic page caching. By default, Firefox keeps the last eight pages in memory, regardless of how many tabs you have open.

He suggests that, by changing the value of browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers, you can tune the cache to taste. The default setting, -1, tells Firefox to automatically optimize page caching for available memory up to a maximum of eight pages. On the other hand, you can manually enter the number of pages you want cached and Firefox will comply. (3 = 3 pages, 17 = 17 pages, etc. Get it?)

Parting tip: When you find pages with badly behaving javascript, take what you need and move on. Poorly written scripts can screw up Firefox worse than caffiene deficiency. Don’t leave them up if you can avoid it.

Email Battles Backgrounder: