Speeding Up Firefox

[mister ed 10]

There is plenty you can do to speed up Firefox. I found this tutorial on a Linux site, but the tweaks are relevant to the browser not to the OS so go ahead and use them in Windows as well.

 

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/speed-up-firefox-web-browser.html

 

The tutorial is written, not in video format but it is much more detailed with many more methods of optimising Firefox for speed and efficiency. I have implemented all of them and the difference is incredible.

[mister ed 10]

Once you are familiar with the procedures for changing these settings to optimise Firefox, go to this site for even more detailed modifications. The guy here shows how to optimise Firefox depending on your connection speed and computer speed.

 

The site is at

http://codebetter.com/blogs/darrell.norton/archive/2005/01/28/48720.aspx

 

He provides specific settings depending on whether you have:

A Fast Computer & Fast Connection;

a Fast Computer & Slower Connection;

a Fast Computer & Slow Connection;

or a Slow Computer & Fast Connection.

[Minetoo 10]

Mr. Ed:

FWIW, I benchmarked my Firefox and found no difference after completing all the tweaks suggested by unbuntugeek than I posted here:

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f114/recommended-router-for-trading-3524.html

[mister ed 10]

Hi Minetoo - thanks for that, so its that one tweak that makes the difference ... and here's me spending ages doing all the other stuff!

[BlowFish 10]

There is also a plugin called Fasterfox that I came across when looking at these links. Never tried it but thought I might

 

Be aware that by default it pre-fetches links on a web page. This is how some old accelerators worked. This can be concidered 'bad behaviour' for numerous reasons (for example its likely to increase James' bandwidth costs if several people start using it). So if you do try it out turn this option off and be bandwidth friendly

 

Cheers.

[mister ed 10]

Yes I have that pre-fetch option turned off, was probably a great benefit before faster internet speeds but now like you say its a bandwidth thief!

[Minetoo 10]

 

Be aware that by default it pre-fetches links on a web page.

 

 

Blowfish: Is the pre-fetch setting you are referring to "network.prefetch-next" ?

[albatross 10]

I have tried Fasterfox,

http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/

 

My perception is it is faster than standard Firefox but I have no benchmarks to back that up.

[BlowFish 10]

Blowfish: Is the pre-fetch setting you are referring to "network.prefetch-next" ?

 

Not too sure havent tried the plugin.

[Andrew 10]

I'm tried to install that, but its not compatible

[daedalus 10]

fyi... fasterfox does work with FF 3.5+...

 

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12878

 

Just installed it here...

 

And I should mention it has made a NOTICEABLE boost in my browsing speed. Highly recommended!

[rcossey73 10]

I switched to Google Chrome, it has come a long ways in a short time. Much faster than FF or IE without any tweaking required. Version 4 now supports extensions and appears to be the exact same support as Firefox.

[Kiwi 16]

I've been running Firefox 3.7 since a2 first came out.

I also run the latest alpha of Google Chrome.

 

Chrome is slightly faster than FF 3.7 but its not a big difference like it was when C first came out. Each FF makes the difference smaller.

 

Chrome and my logitech mouse are not in love with each other -- google chrome's mouse handling is interesting

 

Although V4 has extensions it doesn't have the rich variety that FF has - although I imagine that won't be true in 2011.

 

Chrome's look and feel is different and if you like one you may well not like the other. Chrome is still aiming to be the "dummies browser." Google has deliberately kept it light on features and its still hard to customize. If you are a power user that might irritate you a bit.

 

 

So FF3.7 for me. I keep upgrading the Chrome Alphas though and there is still a speed advantage. But its not much and it certainly isn't enough to make you go "wow ... I'm going to go with Chrome for a while and see if I like it" any more.

[rcossey73 10]

I still have FF 3.5 so maybe an upgrade may make a difference. I had some issues with FF not playing nice with another app which is what made me go check out chrome again.

 

So far I like the Chrome interface, I don't think there is enough difference with FF to make me prefer one over the other.

 

I guess I am one of those dummies as I keep my interface as basic as possible. I only care that it plays nice with the sites I visit and apps I run. So far so good.

 

One good thing is that FF has improved a lot more lately, there for a whole (ver2) it got very stagnant...

[TIKITRADER 10]

FF has add ons that I have become attached to that make it hard to use other browsers. The smartbookmarks tabs and xmarks are convenient. Using FF 3.6b4 and it is fine so far. I used fasterfox in past and worked great and was not aware it is available in newer versions.

 

I do like chrome although I have gone back very recently to Opera to give it another try. O has some great features that I enjoy. Opera tubo works nicely and pages load quick. I will spend some time with O and see what I think but it is hard to give up FF.

[BlowFish 10]

I've been running Firefox 3.7 since a2 first came out.

I also run the latest alpha of Google Chrome.

 

Chrome is slightly faster than FF 3.7 but its not a big difference like it was when C first came out. Each FF makes the difference smaller.

 

Sounds like I need to re-evaluate the new FF beta, I must say chrome has pretty much won me over for day to day browsing. It feels really snappy, there are several things that contribute to that experience.

 

One think Kiwi, I see 3.6b5 on the beta download page (they are calling it a preview now) does this update to 3.7 or is there a separate 'real' beta?

 

Incidentally that is why competition is good, I don't think Mozilla would have concentrated so hard on performance if chrome had not arrived on the scene.

 

 

Edit Installed 3.6b5 and it feels much more responsive.....I guess that's thanks to the new geko rendering engine.

[Kiwi 16]

3.7 is an alpha ... its a newer stream than 3.6

 

But its never been anything but solid for me.

[BlowFish 10]

Ahh figured it may be something like that. I'll stay with 3.6b for now that is noticeably faster than the release version (due to geko I guess) Xmarks works with chrome (dev channel version) so its easy to go back and forth.

 

I really do like chrome (i think I am a minimalist at heart) and it has some neat architectural features (each page is essentially 'sandboxed' running as a separate thread to others for example). My one big gripe is such a basic thing......you cant 'open' a file directly in chrome, download is your only option.

 

It will be interesting to see where it goes.

[BlowFish 10]

Wierd thing but even to my pretty poor eyes chrome renders crisper. Here are images from each forgive the bmp's but didn't want to introduce compression artefacts (they are quite small images).

chrome.bmp

ff.bmp

[Kiwi 16]

LOL Blowfish.

 

Put on your glasses. Then move the pictures around your screen.

 

I checked and was sure firefox was better. Then I put firefox at the top and google in the middle. And google was better.

 

It seems I should buy better screens - perhaps we can get a group rate?

 

Have a good weekend,

Kiwi

 

 

 

PS. Try installing 3.7a ... it will install in minefield and its easy to use one or the other. I'd be interested to know if you thought it was faster than 3.6

[BlowFish 10]

As I say my eyes aren't great, but using firefox some of the buttons I was clicking just didn't seem quite so 'crisp'. Could be all sorts of things (including some sort of weird perceptional bias). It seemed noticeable (to me) even if barely.

[bakrob99 11]

The best way to speed up Firefox is to go to Google Chrome.

[Tams 20]

Wierd thing but even to my pretty poor eyes chrome renders crisper. Here are images from each forgive the bmp's but didn't want to introduce compression artefacts (they are quite small images).

 

 

wow that's a big difference.

[rcossey73 10]

I really hadn't any difference in image quality until I did the experiment from Kiwi and open the same images up next to each other and I Chrome does look a little better.

 

Anyways, so far so good for me Chrome is working out well.

 

I also hope they make changes to allow you to open files without having to download them first. I would think this is not a big deal as the browser is just passing the process over to the OS and to another application.

[Tams 20]

LOL Blowfish.

 

Put on your glasses. Then move the pictures around your screen.

 

I checked and was sure firefox was better. Then I put firefox at the top and google in the middle. And google was better.

 

It seems I should buy better screens - perhaps we can get a group rate?

 

Have a good weekend,

Kiwi

 

 

 

PS. Try installing 3.7a ... it will install in minefield and its easy to use one or the other. I'd be interested to know if you thought it was faster than 3.6

 

 

I ditched my CRT years ago.

 

;-)>