Reduce memory usage in Chrome by suspending tabs

Google Chrome seems to use lots of memory especially when there are lots of tabs open at once. It quite often slows down my machine significantly to the point that I have to restart the browser (with all tabs still open after the restart) and then it gradually slows down again. I'm glad I came across The Great Suspender. This extension allows me to suspend any tab manually, or let it suspend idle tabs for me automatically.

Refs

http://lifehacker.com/5982490/the-great-suspender-suspends-memory+hungry-chrome-tabs-you-havent-used-lately
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon

Firefox 10 keeps crashing

After upgrading to Firefox 10, the new version kept crashing every time I opened it. Running it in safe mode (firefox -safe-mode) didn't help.

I ended up creating a new profile to fix this problem using the following command and switch:-

firefox -P

All plugins were gone and needed reinstalling. I could get some data back though from the old profile folder in

/home/tom/.mozilla/firefox/xxxx.default

Refs
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11595179

New Brower Session on IE8/IE9 and Google Chrome

IE8 or IE9 (Microsoft Internet Explorer)
Use -nomerge switch when running IE.

Google Chrome (V12.0.742.124)

• Use Ctrl + Shift + N to bring up a new Chrome window in the Incognito mode (private browsing). However, any subsequent window opened up this way will share the same session.
• Use --user-data-dir switch with different profile locations when running Chrome. A bit awkward but can be mitigated by using shortcuts. However, each session will its own config and cache. For example,

google-chrome --user-data-dir=/home/tom/chrome-profiles/1
google-chrome --user-data-dir=/home/tom/chrome-profiles/2
google-chrome --user-data-dir=/home/tom/chrome-profiles/3

Refs
http://superuser.com/questions/690/new-browser-session-on-firefox-and-google-chrome

Browser Cache Location in Ubuntu

FireFox
~/.mozilla/firefox/Cache

Google Chrome
~/.cache/google-chrome

Opera
~/.opera/cache

Refs:
http://superuser.com/questions/223774/google-chrome-and-firefox-cache-in-ubuntu

Google Chrome Extensions Similar to ScrapBook in FireFox

Clip to Evernote (v4.2.14.1888 - April 23, 2011)

• Can clip both text and image to Evernote.
• No "Delete Note" function in the editor (have to go to the main EverNote web app to delete a note).
• Monthly upload allowance for a free account is 60MB (1GB for Premium for $5 per month).

NoteBook Professional (v1.4 - February 24, 2011)

• Clip selected text or image to NoteBook (cannot clip selected text and image at the same time).
• Offline HTML editor but the editing area cannot be resized.
• No Google Doc upload, just pop up Google Notebook or open Google Docs page.

Scrapbook (v1.1.12 - November 14, 2010)

• Similar to FireFox's ScrapBook Plus but it can only grab the whole page, not just part of the page.
• The captured content is stored locally and can be classified, highlighted, and modified.

Snippy (v 0.3.0 - March 01, 2010)

• Grap snippets of web pages that can be uploaded to Google Docs or SnipBin.
• It fails to upload the whole page content to Google Docs with the error 

"Upload failed (400 - Bad Request). Please retry in a few seconds."

but it works OK when uploading the whole page to SnipBin.

• It can only grap and upload the content, nothing else.

My Most Often Used FireFox Extensions

BarTab

Free memory by loading the content only when the tab is visited. Tabs can also be unloaded or loaded manually as well. FireFox starts much faster with this addon when having many tabs left open from the previous session.

FireGestures

Allow to use mouse gestures to control the browser (navigation, windows, tabs, etc.).

QuickDrag

Drag and drop a link to open it in a new tab, an image to save it and also do a web search on selected text.

ScrapBook Plus

Very good addon for helping do research on the web. It can save the whole or part of web pages and organize them. ScrapBook Plus is a modified version of Gomita's ScrapBook. The saved content can be modified or highligted. Annotations can also be added.

TabGroups Manager

Cool stuff. It helps classifiy tabs into groups. A group can also be hibernated and then reloaded later.