Boosting Web Browser Performance for Win XP (Internet Explorer & Firefox)

With EeePC1000's Atom Processor 1.6GHz, it is definately not as fast as the new desktop processors out there in the market.

When I used either Internet Explorer or Firefox in my EeePC, it was slower than using my desktop. Especially true for my SSD(Solid State Disk) version of EeePC.

SSD write operation is slower than a normal harddisk, or atleast for my SSD.

After researching on the net, I found performance tweak with ramdisk. I will now describe the steps I took to setup the tweak.

You will need:

• Ramdisk Software
• Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Follow these steps:

1. Download and extract the ramdisk.zip
2. Run ramdisk.exe
3. Click on the left button "Install Ramdisk" and wait a few seconds.
   All other options should be enabled afterwards.
4. Begin by selecting a size (of your RAM) for the Ramdisk.
   I would recommand not to use more than 50% of your total system Ram
5. Select a drive letter for the ramdisk
   I recommend picking the letter from the end to avoid conflicts.
6. Keep the "Fixed Media Entry" option and click on "OK" button.
   This should initialize the Ramdisk.
7. Check to see if the new drive letter is available in "My Computer".

Now you have your own ramdisk drive. Next, lets config your IE or Foxie.

IE7:

1. Select "Start" -> "Control Panel" -> "Internet Options"."
2. Under "General" Tab, click on "Settings" for "Browsing History".
3. Click on "Move Folder".
4. Browse to the RAM DISK drive that you have just created.
5. Adjust the "Disk space to use" slider to a new value that is less than your RAM Disk and then click on "OK" button at rest of the prompts.
   Internet Explorer will recreate this folder upon every reboot.
6. Restart IE for the changes to take effect.

Firefox:

1. Fire up Firefox.
2. Type about:config
3. Type browser.cache.disk.parent_directory in the filter box.
4. If there is an entry, modify the value to [ramdisk drive letter]:\\directory
5. If no entry is found, create it by right-clicking the empty space and selecting "New" > "String" from the menu.
   Enter browser.cache.disk.parent_directory as the preference name and enter [ramdisk drive letter]:\\directory as the value.
6. Restart Firefox to take effect.

Please note that you have to use double "\\" and not single "\" after the drive letter.