How can I unload a tab manually?
In one of the links you referenced at Tab Utilities: Feature Request, there is already an answer from the developer (scroll down to comment no. 4) on how to do this. The answer is to:
- Add the
Restart Tab
item to the context menu.
Why it's called "Restart Tab" and not "Unload Tab", I don't understand, but he says you can just change it if you want. Set:
extensions.tabutils.menu.context_restartTab.label
to "Unload Tab".
By the way, at the moment it only works on tabs that are not selected/focussed. In other words, if you do "Restart Tab" on the currently open tab, it will just reload. You have to switch to another tab, then right-click on the tab you want to unload, and choose "Restart Tab".
Here are the instructions from the developer, I updated them a little:
Set
browser.sessionstore.max_concurrent_tabs
to0
inabout:config
. (BarTab Lite or Load Tabs Progressively extension should also work.) [ the above is outdated, in current versions of Firefox, go to preferences/options for Tabs, and check "Don't load tabs until selected". ]Unload tabs manually with Restart Tab or Restart All Tabs menuitem. [ first you have to make sure the "Restart Tab" item is added to the context menu, in Tab Utilities preferences/options -> Appearance -> Menus -> Tab Context Menu ]
Unload tabs automatically after a specified period of inactivity with
extensions.tabutils.restartAfter
option (minutes).Tag bookmarks with "norestart" to make an auto-unload black list.
All Tabs Helper and Auto Unload Tab do this, among other things.
A workaround: Force the tab to reload using CTRL+F5
and stop it quickly (using the cross in the URL bar). It may leave you with a blank page (or almost blank) which consumes little resources.