Recently, my Firefox browser started loading without the extensions I’ve installed.  I run my Firefox browser off of my 4GB Cruzer using the PortableApps suite.

When Firefox loaded, it would load without a single extension, but when I opened the “add-ins” box, it listed all of my extensions.

Here is the thread where I found my particular solution.  I was able to get Firefox to load my extensions again by modifying the files within my Firefox profile (find it in you user account appdata folder).  I deleted extensions.cache, extensions.ini and extensions.rdf.  When I started Firefox the next time, it regenerated these files using the extensions that were in my profile (folders like {2fa4ed95-0317-4c6a-a74c-5f3e3912c1f9}).

Problem solved for me.  I did take notice that Firefox is blazing fast on start-up. . . until I load a ton of extensions.  With the number of extensions I have, it’s more like Visual Studio since I’m loading up a whole suite of web development tools.  Firefox is just as much a web IDE as Visual Studio – including the RAM usage.