Memory Restart is a free tool coming in the form of a Firefox extension. The add-on lets you set a memory threshold. The add-on also places an icon in Firefox’s address bar. You can set the icon colors for the browser being under and over your set memory threshold which, by default, is 500MB. You can click on the icon to quickly restart Firefox; alternatively you can set the add-on to automatically restart Firefox once the memory threshold is reached.

Features:

• A user-friendly web service.
• Lets you set a memory threshold for Firefox.
• Lets you quickly restart Firefox.
• Can automatically restart Firefox once memory threshold is reached.

Check out Memory Restart @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/memory-restart (By Umar from TechCityInc)

This list of add-ons also provide the percentage impact of each add-on on your browser’s load time. FoxLingo and FireBug top the list with 74% and some really popular ones like FoxyTunes and GreaseMonkey are also above the 15% threshold. The page lists around 50 add-ons that have some impact and also lists some tips for developers to optimize their add-ons for eliminating the slowing-down factor.

Features:

• See which Mozilla add-ons are slowing firefox down.
• List of 50 add-ons along with impact.
• Optimize your browser by replacing with lighter add-ons.
• No registration required.

Visit SlowAdd-Ons @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/performance/#addon-11 [Via LifeHacker]

BitMate is a free torrent client for Windows computers. Its setup file is nearly 20MB and is based on Vuze. The creators of the client spent nearly 2 years tweaking with the torrent settings to find out what provided maximum speeds on slow Internet connections. On slow connections, researchers have found that low bandwidth connections can experience as much as a 70% boost in download speeds. The client achieves this without cheating or adversely affecting the performance of higher bandwidth peers.

Features:

• A user-friendly desktop application.
• Helps download torrent files.
• Meant for low-bandwidth connections.
• Increases download speeds of low-bandwidth connections.
• Does not adversely affect the torrents performance of higher bandwidth peers.
• Similar tools: Ultratorrent, Tribler and TaffyBox.
• Also read related articles:
  The 5 Best Torrent Clients For Linux
  How to Access your Torrent Client & Download Torrents Remotely.

Check out BitMate @ www.bitmate.sourceforge.net (by MOin from ThumbPress)

Using this tool is very easy. Just load the URL of the two websites and click go. The websites will then begin loading simultaneously in a race and let you know which website loads the fastest. The difference will be shown in milliseconds once both websites have completely loaded.

You can set up different matchups or try your own. Race Google and Bing against each other or even Apple and Adobe. You can also choose between Parallel more (load simultaneously) and Serial mode (load one at a time). You can set a repeat matchup for X number of times to know which website loaded faster on average. A CSV export is available if you want to keep track of your loading speeds.

Whichloadsfaster is a useful tool for anyone interested in knowing the speed of their websites.

Features:

• Compare and test loading speed of website.
• Preset races available or make your own.
• Save the data in CSV.
• Repeat races available for more accurate results.
• Similar Tools: WebsiteSpeedTest, WebPagetest, and PageSpeed.

Check out WhichLoadsFaster @ http://whichloadsfaster.com

The application is still in beta so some features like customizing and saving personal preferences are still worked on.

Features:

• Increase the speed of internet your mobile.
• Removes all unnecessary graphics and leaves only important stuff.
• Free and simple to use.
• Similar websites: IYHY, BareSite and Finch.

Check out Mobtimizer @ www.mobtimizer.com

You can also create an account and save every site that you visit, so in the future you can just click on the sites you want without having to type.

Features:

• Speed up your internet browsing when browisng from mobile phone.
• Removes all unnecessary elements such as images, graphics and leaves only text.
• Save your favorites sites for easy access later (registration needed).
• Free and simple to use.
• Similar websites: BareSite and Finch.

Check out IYHY @ www.iyhy.com

Additionally there is an option to customize preferences to show/hide images, set default pages, show/hide most and last visited pages and more.

Features:

• Browse websites faster from your mobile or dial-up internet connection.
• Ability to turn off images to increase the loading speed.
• Show/hide latest and most visited pages, hide or display URLs, etc.
• No email or registration needed.
• Similar website: Finch

Check out BareSite @ www.baresite.com

From the page:

“For example, the New York Times homepage is over 110KB, and uses external resources (images, scripts, what have you) that make it amount to about 1.4MB. Finch trims that down to 84KB, which doesn’t look as pretty, but is 94% less for your computer to download.”

The idea is to reduce the data to a minimum leaving only the main content. All you need to do is type in the URL of a website and click “Go”. All on page links will be opened in Finch as well.

Features:

• speedup browsing speed on slow dial-up connections.
• Reduce page sizes by stripping secondary elements from pages (CSS, flash, frames, etc.)
• No sign-up or registration needed.

Check out Finch @ www.finch.ploogy.net (via labnol.org)