the issue of the cache ...
my ie cache is currently set at <600mb (the default on this system)
(at work ... we use an 800mb default)
the idea is that ie clears a % chunk and then fills it with new stuff .... when it gets full ... it does it again
if you surf a lot ...50 (and now 40Mb) doesn't go far .... your system (firefox) is constantly going to be clearing it's cache.
remember the cache is going to be the same size as IE for any given site.
so rather than reducing it .... i'd say bang it up to 500-700Mb
to prevent sys slowdown
(firefox works like all browsers in this respect ... it's the way it handles the code that's different
as for the memory (I assume you mean mem and not disc space)
windows uses pre-fetch which is like the browser cache.... it hangd on to code that's been used recently .... just in case you need it again .... if you need more ... it drops memory as it needs it (because mem significantly faster than a hdd windows generally gets away with it).
unless a prog has a memory leak ... then it hangs on to chunks even though the main prog has gone.
the upshot is that over time your ram fills .... and stays full .... ram amnagers tend to slow systems down rather than speeding them up .... but the big numbers look good.