Clearing out the excess

[Pixilated]

My computer (Mac mini) is running quite slow and I'm wondering if I should be clearing out the cache and/or cookies (or is that the same thing??) I've looked online but it keeps referring to opening Safari, which I don't use and in fact don't even have installed. I use Firefox.

Anybody got any suggestions for doing this clearout with Firefox?

[Ironclad Alibi]

Try this web site: How to clear the Firefox cache

[RealUnimportant]

Cache is all the files it has to download from websites, cookies is all your login data for those websites. Ideally you shouldn't need to touch the cookies, and honestly in all my mac-using days (closing in on 20 years at home soon!) I've also never worried about the cache; it never seemed to cause as many issues on here as it did running on a Windows machine.

is it just browsing that's slow, or other things too? One of my older machines that I've been dumping files into complained about having *only* 20GB left on the hard drive the other day, but even that one I don't notice any real issues doing other stuff. Still, it can be worth checking the Storage Settings ( menu, About This Mac..., then it depends on what version of MacOS you're running as to where you need to go next - look it up if you get too lost) to see if it thinks there any files that can be offloaded to free some space, which should in turn speed things up a bit.

[Pixilated]

Try this web site: How to clear the Firefox cache

I will look into that, thanks!

[Pixilated]

Cache is all the files it has to download from websites, cookies is all your login data for those websites. Ideally you shouldn't need to touch the cookies, and honestly in all my mac-using days (closing in on 20 years at home soon!) I've also never worried about the cache; it never seemed to cause as many issues on here as it did running on a Windows machine.

is it just browsing that's slow, or other things too? One of my older machines that I've been dumping files into complained about having *only* 20GB left on the hard drive the other day, but even that one I don't notice any real issues doing other stuff. Still, it can be worth checking the Storage Settings ( menu, About This Mac..., then it depends on what version of MacOS you're running as to where you need to go next - look it up if you get too lost) to see if it thinks there any files that can be offloaded to free some space, which should in turn speed things up a bit.

Good grief ... according to "Storage" I have 438.06 GB available of 479.89 GB. Soooo ...yeah, that doesn't sound like an overloaded system!

I'm running macOS Monterey, version 12.7.6

I didn't see anything marked "Storage Settings" but I did see a button marked "Manage" and it seems to be what I'd look at to see what I should get rid of. Will check into that tomorrow.

Although now I think of it, maybe the fact I often have several windows open at once might be either "a" problem or perhaps "the" problem ....

[RealUnimportant]

Although now I think of it, maybe the fact I often have several windows open at once might be either "a" problem or perhaps "the" problem ....

Almost certainly. If there's one thing that's driven the pace of processor speed innovation more than anything else, it's internet browser bloat! Multiple windows, multiple tabs in those windows, it all adds up!

If you keep a few open for regular access but you don't need them all the time I personally recommend yet another speed-dial; I moved to FF from Opera, and having all my most-used websites all in one easy to see place that was visible whenever I opened a new window was the one thing I struggled without. This does an awesome job of doing the same job, and in some ways it's superior to Opera's because of how it's laid out. The link I've provided goes to the dev's page, from there click the button for your browser to get to the appropriate store to install it.

Ad blockers will also seriously save your CPU cycles. uBlock Origin is the best, no contest. get it from the same place you end up getting the one above, the browser's plug-in store. You can also whitelist sites you don't mind seeing ads from, such as here to help pay the server bills!