HOWTO: Streamline Firefox 13.0.1 for TCL

[s4brains]

Greetings:

The Firefox browser is a favorite among Linux users.  Unfortunately, Firefox creates a large presence with files of significant size in the user's home directory.

This large presence exacts a heavy toll in an environment like TCL where the contents of the home directory are saved with each shutdown and restored again with each boot.  The most significant offending file is one labeled "urlclassifier3.sqlite".  The size of this file is typically about 50-55 MB.

This file is the product of two security measures built-in to Firefox which are enabled by default.  In v13.0.1 these security measures are labeled "Block reported attack sites" and "Block reported web forgeries" and can be found under "Preferences/Security".  It is my belief that disabling these options poses little risk in an environment like TCL where a fresh copy of the operating system is created with each new boot.

However, disabling these options alone does not alleviate the problem of saving and restoring the 55MB "urlclassifier3.sqlite" file.  Even deleting this file when Firefox is not open will not suffice because a new "urlclassifier3.sqlite" file will be created the next time Firefox is started.  The new file will be considerably smaller (about 5MB) but I still find that objectionable.

This is how I resolved the situation in my version of TCL:

1) Open "Control Panel/Tiny Core System Stats/bigHomeFiles" and note the location of the "urlclassifier3.sqlite" file after you have disabled these options in Firefox and closed Firefox.

2) Open a RootTerminal and browse to the folder indicated in the step above while Firefox is not open.

3) While in the RootTerminal delete the file with "rm urlclassifier3.sqlite".

4) While still in the RootTerminal create a new zero byte file with "touch urlclassifier3.sqlite".

5) Firefox's permissions will still allow it to write to the file so it is necessary to change the file permissions while still in a RootTerminal with a "chmod 400 urlclassifier3.sqlite" command to prevent Firefox from increasing the file to 5MB again.

6) Reboot and the problem should be gone as the file size will remain at zero bytes when you open Firefox again and the file should no longer appear as an offender in the " bigHomeFiles" list.

7) Since you have removed a significant level of protection from Firefox, it may be desirable to install the "noscript" add-on to firefox to provide minimal protection again.

I believe this same procedeure will also work for verions of Firefox newer than v13.0.1.



Regards,

s4

[gerald_clark]

Why not just add it to /opt/.xfiletool.lst ?

[s4brains]

Gerald,

I believe the "urlclassifier3.sqlite" file is periodically updated from a list supplied by Google.  Simply adding the file to ".xfiletool.lst " wouldn't preclude Firefox from attempting to update the file and the inherent filesystem activity overhead associated with Firefox updating the file.  If Firefox cannot write to the file, there should not be any such activity.

However, my fears about file activity may be unfounded and adding the file to ".xfiletool.lst" may work equally as well, and it is certainly simpler to do it that way.

Regards,

s4

[gerald_clark]

Good point.

[curaga]

At least older versions allowed you to disable the file compile-time. Not sure if the current minefields have it that way.

[bmarkus]

More polite way to reduce size:

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,9500.0.html