Good day, dear friends, readers, visitors and other individuals.
Today we will talk about such a useful thing as transferring the browser cache to another drive. Why might this be necessary? Well, for example: for optimization purposes (in case of transferring it, say, to RAM-disk or on SSD) the work of these same browsers, or in order to save valuable space on your hard drive (for example, if in some mythical way you don’t have enough space on your hard drive), or maybe to extend lifespan SSD.
In general, I think that everyone will find their own practical application for this issue, but for now we will simply share a tool for making this a reality. Moreover, we will touch upon almost all adequate modern browsers, which means almost no one will be offended.
Let's get started.
Mozilla FireFox Browser Cache Transfer
Let's start with my favorite, namely the browser FF. Personally, I transferred his profile + cache (and the distribution itself) on RAM-disk, which I advise you to do.
Actually, here is the sequence of actions we get:
With changes within the system, that’s probably all. Now we need to explain to the browser that we have moved its profile and cache to another location.
In a nutshell, something like this. Let's move on to other browsers.
Transferring Google Chrome Browser Cache
Performed almost identically to profile transfer FireFox, only a little faster and easier :
As you can see, actually, nothing complicated.
Well, for a snack, let's talk about the red browser.
Transfer cache and profile of Opera browser
For Opera everything is the same as transfer Google Chrome :
That's all for now. Just like that, simple and fast.
Afterword.
These are the pies. I hope that this information was useful to you.
Well, as was said at the beginning of the article, I think everyone will find a use for themselves.
PS: Default cache storage paths may change in different versions of the program
PS2: Transferring the cache by assigning a parameter to a shortcut works only when launched through this shortcut, and in other cases the default path is used (can be treated by editing the registry).
Android OS users over time face a lack of internal space, which makes it difficult to download and receive files via Bluetooth, and makes it impossible to install new applications. The reason lies in games and programs for which 8 or 16 GB drives are not enough. The solution to problems is to move the application cache to an SD memory card using one of two available methods.
System cache move
The first and most accessible way for a novice user to transfer the cache to an SD card is a system move. Transfers part of the application, including massive files. To do this, go to the device settings, then “Programs”. A list of all installed applications, go into what is taking up a lot of disk space and find the "Move to SD card" button. Clicking on it will automatically transfer the cache from the internal drive to the external one (if the memory is divided into 2 sections) or to a MicroSD card.
Similar actions are performed using third-party utilities, for example AppMgr III (App 2 SD). It does not require Root rights, but with them a couple of additional functions will open. The principle of operation is no different from the standard one, only batch actions are available here, the cache is transferred and cleared in one click, and moved applications are displayed.
At the same time, not all devices support system data transfer. In them, internal and external memory are one unit, and access to the MicroSD card is blocked. But even if your smartphone or tablet does not lack such a function, some applications are not portable because the developer did not add it. In addition, after the transfer, some games will take longer to load due to a slow card. Therefore, make sure that the speed of the flash drive is at least class 6.
Mounting cache folders
The second method is to mount folders. Physically, the cache is stored on MicroSD, and the device’s memory contains only the images necessary for proper operation. At its core, these are like shortcuts in Windows; files are stored on one local drive, but accessed from another. Actions are performed using the FolderMount application (Root rights are required, otherwise the program will not work). The mounting process is simple and consists of several steps in which two folders are linked together.
- Open the application and click on the plus button.
- In the window that appears, fill in the information in three fields:
- “Name” – the name of the mounted folder (not necessarily exact).
- “Source” – the path to the folder whose data needs to be moved.
- “Destination” – the path to the folder on the MicroSD where the transferred data will be stored.
- We confirm the choice and agree with the warning about transferring files, wait for the operation to complete.
- Activate the mount by pressing the pin button. After this, the files in both folders are linked together.
Please note file managers will report identical files in your linked folders. In reality, the information is only contained on MicroSD, and in internal memory images. To delete an application whose cache was transferred to the memory card, first unmount the folder. To do this, click on the pin of the previously linked pair, then long press, after which the basket shortcut will appear. The data will be moved to the original directory and deleted.
The free version of FolderMount is limited compared to PRO, and offers 3 mount points. But even this is enough to free up space from the heaviest applications.
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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 where exactly to store Chrome cache 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 systems 7, 8, 10. For other operating systems, other methods are used to install 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.
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 missing 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), it will still constantly jerk hard drive, from which the path begins.
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.
Of course, there is no point in speeding up your browser cache if the speed of your Internet connection leaves much to be desired. But now networks are fast, and often the bottleneck in your browser's performance is reading, and especially writing to your hard drive. This problem can be solved by placing it in RAM, read/write operations from which are performed hundreds of times faster than with a hard drive, which is almost instantaneous. And the increase in performance will be noticeably faster, especially when accessing web pages repeatedly, since most of the data that forms this page will be loaded not from the network, nor from hard drive, but from RAM.
Saving the cache
Another problem may arise here - if there is a sudden power outage, the cache will inevitably be lost. Therefore, if you want the cache to be saved, you will need to save the contents of the cache to the hard drive every time you turn off the computer’s power, and load it at startup. In certain cases, such a procedure may be justified due to the increase in the speed of loading web pages, especially if the machine is rarely turned off.
How to put browser cache into RAM
First, you need to select an area the right size in RAM so that you can work with it like a regular hard drive. The so-called RAM-drive, or RAMdisk. The only difference is that files will be written to and read from this “disk” instantly.
Linux
IN operating systems linux such an operation is performed using standard system tools, without any tricks. A file system in RAM is created and mounted in any convenient location with one command. For example, this one:
mount tmpfs /mount_point -t tmpfs -o size=300m.
Here, tmpfs is nothing more than a type of file system for RAM. And the size option, the size, in this case, 300 megabytes was created for a partition in RAM, depends on the amount of memory available and on what you are going to store in this “disk”. In our case, this is a cache, for which 300 MB is enough.
Next, all you need to do is tell the browser to store the cache in this very location /mount_point, which is in different browsers It's done a little differently, but more on that later.
Windows and RAMdisk utility
First, let’s see how such a trick with creating a super-fast “hard drive” in the very brain of the machine can be done in these Windows of yours.
For this we will need... crutches, of course, how else) Well, or a wheelchair, or maybe a prosthesis, I don’t know which metaphor is more suitable. And if we omit these metaphors, that is, this can most definitely be called either a driver or a utility, but there is an opinion that it is both in one glass. This software is called RAMdisk (how unpredictable, right?), It has several different versions, say enterprise, plus, is tailored for different architectures (versions for 32 and 64 bit systems) And this useful thing lives on the network, for example, at the other end of the link http://ramdisk.nm.ru/ramdiskent-rus.htm, from where it can be obtained without any restrictions.
In general, if you google, you will find many more places where you can find it, but this particular page was listed in the bookmarks of the local author, I don’t remember from what time immemorial. It is this link, apparently because there, in addition to the driver itself, you can get it on your screen detailed instructions how to use this joy, and even in pictures. What the local author cannot but rejoice at is that it saves him from the useless typing of an extra two or three kiloletters for a given document.
The only other thing you can notice about this program is that on the website it is indicated that it is written for everything windows versions except for the very last one, under the sacred number 7. I have nothing to say about this, because I have not tried to engage in such shamanism under the number seven. But it seems that it is not indicated there only because at the time of writing that document, Windows Seven did not yet exist, and a utility under it that functions, if necessary, can be found on the network.
We issue a command to the browser
So. The memory has been cut and prepared, now we can announce to the browser that from now on it will write its cache not where the developers told it, but where we please. That is, into a freshly created file system in RAM.
Firefox
In order for your firefox to place its cache where you want, you need to go to its config and create the necessary setting there with the desired value. IN address bar We type about:config, we see a bunch of different lines. But they are not suitable for us, we will, of course, write ours there by right-clicking right on the settings page and selecting “create>string” from the menu, let’s call it “browser.cache.disk.parent_directory”, and in the value we will indicate the path where We will have a live cache. That is, in the case of Windows, this will be your newly created “disk” in RAM - for example, some kind of “R:\cache”, and in Linux, let’s say “/home/user/mount_point/cache”. Restart the browser and voila.
Opera
In Opera everything is simpler, where the developers have already taken care of it and we don’t need to create a line with the setting ourselves, but only need to change the value. So, as usual, in the address bar “opera:config”, we look for the “Cache Directory4” option and use its value to create our ultra-fast file system. And we begin to feel the difference in page loading speed. Or maybe we don’t start, depending on who’s lucky) Well, that’s all.
How this is done in chrome - by analogy, you can find it if you want. It's the same in your other Internet Explorers.
Other uses of this scheme
By the way, file system in RAM this is a very useful thing not only for the browser cache, you can find a hundred much more interesting and useful applications. Well, for example, put a proxy server cache there for internal local network, do you think users will feel it?) Or launching a toy with a particularly crunchy hard drive from there, if you have enough RAM, might also be a good idea, huh?
