Speed Up Firefox

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Speed Up Firefox And Set Your Hair On Fire

Speed Up Firefox? Out of the box, Firefox is a FAR superior browser as compared to MS Internet Explorer in regards to its flexibility and reliability.  I have taken the opportunity to compile a list of tweaks anyone can use to speed up Firefox and maximize its performance. Unlike Internet Explorer, YOU WILL NOT BE MAKING CHANGES TO THE SYSTEM REGISTERY

Using these tweaks to speed up Firefox, it is likely you will gain performance improvements of several seconds when loading pages. If you don't already have Firefox, you may download it here: Firefox 2

Performance Settings Used To Speed Up Firefox 

Firefox 2

To implement the following tweaks, type "about:config", without the "", in the Firefox Address bar. This will open the Firefox configuration file. Good news is that the changes do not have to be permanent. Changes made to about:config are stored in a file that is not present by default; user.js in the Mozilla profile folder. To go back to the bone stock configuration, simply delete this file and it is like the changes never happened.

When making a change to an existing setting, you will be changing an integer value or a bolean(true/false) value. After highlighting setting with your cursor, right-click to enter changes.

You may want to experiment with different values for the settings listed below. The values I have listed are not set in stone. They are the ones I have found work best for my computer. Again, if there is a problem, you can always delete the user.js file and start over.

A Video Lesson On Using About:Config to Help You Speed Up Firefox 

This video is good for those of you who are visual learners and need to see what I am talking about.

Make Firefox much Faster About:Config Tutorial

http://youtube.jimmyr.com/ to request tutorials Make firefox much faster by editing the about:config options. Many options like nglayout, memory.capacity and trim_on_minimize seem to have disappeared in firefox 2.0 =/ at least for me. %%software

curated content from YouTube

Another Video Explaining About:Config 

Lightning Fast Browsing (Firefox & Internet Explorer Tweaks)

http://www.geekai.com/

curated content from YouTube

The Most Important Tweaks To Speed Up Firefox 

Everyone Who Uses Firefox Should Implement these Tweaks...

Firefox 2

Text in quotes is setting. Number or (true/false) is the value for the setting

"network.http.pipelining", true
"network.http.pipelining.firstrequest", true
"network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8
"user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0

Pipelining does multiple data requests at once and should speed things up. I believe IE did this before and this was partially attributable to the speed advantage that IE had over older versions of Mozilla/Netscape. Initial Paint Delay actually slows down the rendering of the ENTIRE page but since users tend to start reading before the entire page is rendered, setting this to a low value gives the impression that the page loads faster.

Tweaks Common to all configurations 

These are the settings that seem to be common to all configuration files regardless of connection speed or computer speed with a couple of additions - plugin paths can be found with about:plugins and the bookmark menu delay is turned off.

"network.http.pipelining", true
"network.http.proxy.pipelining", true
"network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8
"content.notify.backoffcount", 5
"plugin.expose_full_path", true
"ui.submenuDelay", 0

Tweaks For A Fast Computer With A Fast Connection 

"content.interrupt.parsing", true
"content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000
"content.notify.interval", 750000
"content.notify.ontimer", true
"content.switch.threshold", 750000
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0
"network.http.max-connections", 48
"network.http.max-connections-per-server", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 8
"browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536

A couple settings of note - Firefox is allocated 4096 KB of memory by default and in this configuration we give it roughly 65MB as denoted by the last line. This can be changed according to what is used.

Tweaks For Fast Computer With A Slower Connection 

This configuration is more suited to people without ultra fast connections. We are not talking about dial up connections but DSL / Cable connections running at slower speeds.

"content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000
"content.notify.interval", 750000
"content.notify.ontimer", true
"content.switch.threshold", 750000
"network.http.max-connections", 48
"network.http.max-connections-per-server", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 8
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0
"browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536

Tweaks For Slow Computer With A Fast Connection 

"content.max.tokenizing.time", 3000000
"content.notify.backoffcount", 5
"content.notify.interval", 1000000
"content.notify.ontimer", true
"content.switch.threshold", 1000000
"content.maxtextrun", 4095
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 1000
"network.http.max-connections", 48
"network.http.max-connections-per-server", 16)
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 8
dom.disable_window_status_change", true

Tweaks For Slow Computer With A Slow Connection 

For People with Dial-Up Connections

Firefox 2

"content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
"content.notify.interval", 750000);
"content.notify.ontimer", true);
"content.switch.threshold", 750000
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 750
"network.http.max-connections", 32
"network.http.max-connections-per-server", 8
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 8
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 4
"dom.disable_window_status_change", true

Speed Up Firefox With These Keyboard Shortcuts 

Firefox 2

Power users (lazy people) love keyboard shortcuts and I have a semi-exhaustive list of the common ones here to be used with Firefox. The most important ones (in my opinion) are near the top while the more benign ones are closer to the bottom. If I have missed anything that you think is important be sure
to let me know.


To use the keyboard shortcuts hold down the CTRL key and press one of the following:

T - Opens a new tab and takes the focus to the new tab

O - Open Local File. This is one of the biggest changes from IE where both Ctrl-O and Ctrl-L opened a dialogue box for a URL.

L - Changes focus to the Address bar

Tab Scrolls through the tabs from current window towards the right. Loops back to the first tab when rightmost tab is reached

1..10 The numbers 1 to 10 takes the focus to Tab 1 to 10

N - Opens a new window like IE


B - Open bookmark sidepanel

D - Bookmark current page

H - Brings up the history dialogue box on the right. Useful if you closed a page accidentally and forgot the URL. Or to make sure your kids are not looking at porn

U - Show page source

Y - Open downloads window

K - Focus goes to search bar



Some of the more common shortcuts just for the heck of it:

R - Refresh current page

F - Find in page

G - Find Again
(used in conjunction with Ctrl-F)

Useful Firefox Stuff on Amazon 

Programming Firefox: Building Applications in the Browser

Amazon Price: $19.70 (as of 11/09/2009) Buy Now

Firefox For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Amazon Price: $17.99 (as of 11/09/2009) Buy Now

Firefox Hacks: Tips & Tools for Next-Generation Web Browsing

Amazon Price: $18.21 (as of 11/09/2009) Buy Now

Hacking Firefox: More Than 150 Hacks, Mods, and Customizations (ExtremeTech)

Amazon Price: $22.49 (as of 11/09/2009) Buy Now

Firefox

Amazon Price: (as of 11/09/2009) Buy Now

Firefox Stuff On eBay 

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Firefox In The News 

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Blizzard said that Mozilla and Firefox have paved the way for other browsers like Safari and Google&...
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In terms of browser vulnerabilities, Firefox and Safari led the pack, and Google Chrome was conspicu...
Firefox at 5: What We Love and Hate About You
Mozilla's Firefox Web browser turned five years old today, and as I took it for a celebratory sp...
Head to Head: Google Chrome 4 Beta vs. Firefox 3.6
by Michael Muchmore In the last couple of days, both Google's Chrome browser and Mozilla's F...

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How to Speed Up Firefox by Running It In RAM - wikiHow
This involves a few steps, and a few files, however, it will allow you to run Firefox in RAM (faster) instead of off your hard disk (slower)
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Funny Firefox Videos 

We All Need More Comedy In Our Lives......

Firefox add

Firefox

curated content from YouTube

 

Double-Click Relief

Are you tired of your browser allowing you to get viruses? Try Firefox. I shot this for Firefox Flicks, a contest to create 30 second spots geared toward consumer awareness of the Firefox web browser. It was one of four Firefox commercials shown at the Vail Film Festival in Colorado.

curated content from YouTube

 

Firefox Ad

Firefox Ad. directed by Bruce Hwang Chen, Produced by Robert Snow.

curated content from YouTube

 

Firefox ad contest winner 2006 Fox Fever 3rd place

Firefox ad contest winner 2006 Fox Fever 3rd place

curated content from YouTube

 

Firefox ad contest winner 2006 Dare Devil

Grand Prize "Daredevil" by Pete Macomber

curated content from YouTube

 

Scaring the Competition

My entry for the Mozilla Firefox Ad Contest

curated content from YouTube

New YouTube vids 

The New F Word (Firefox Ad)

He has many to say, but you dont hear so much, because the new f word. More vids are on www.firefoxflicks.com

curated content from YouTube

Even Japan has gotten into the act..... 

curated content from YouTube

...And Still More Places For You To Visit 

Affiliate Marketing Guide : Helping Newbies Earn Extra Money from Affiliate Programs
If you're new to online business but want a fast, easy and legitimate way to get started, then you should start with affiliate marketing. This internet income opportunity is considered one of the best ways to earn extra money online. So, what is affiliate marketing? Simply put, affiliate marketing i
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Build A Niche Store (BANS) is an innovative PHP script which enables you to make money as an eBay affiliate by building eBay affiliate stores (websites) targeted to particular product niches.

With Build A Niche Store you have an immediate choice of 80,000+ niche eBay affiliate stores that you can build across four national online consumer markets...the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Reader Feedback 

Please let me know if any of this information helps Speed Up Firefox, for you. Also, any suggestions for additional tweaks would really be appreciated

-Rossman-

Smellypunks wrote...

Useful lens thanks for the info.

ReplyPosted August 12, 2009

nbkx2yf wrote...

I have been using Firefox since verion 2.0 and I have never regretted it, it has cool features like addons and Adblocker plus is one of them. I love firefox.

http://www.iastron.com

ReplyPosted April 05, 2009

wrote...

Awesome tweaks for the best browser on the planet...Go Firefox! I love being able to customize and develop extensions. Check out my Knofollo Extension that allows you to detect "nofollow" links.

ReplyPosted April 03, 2009

Lensmaster

Anony wrote

ttttt

Reply Posted April 01, 2009

daubyj wrote...

Great lens! Gave it 4 stars.

-----------------------------------------
http://www.warholauctions.net/

ReplyPosted March 17, 2009

PetSnakes wrote...

I just wish everyone would use firefox and then I could stop worrying about making my blogs about keeping snakes as pets and lizards compatible for Internet Explorer.

ReplyPosted March 10, 2009

Wysiwigs wrote...

Great lens ~ I've just recently swapped over to Firefox and love it :o)

ReplyPosted November 15, 2008

Lensmaster

Sara wrote

I love Firefox and I've been using it for the past 6 years, right after I had to reformat my Hard Drive because of a horrible trojan that I got while using IE.

~ Sara
http://www.sheworeprada.com

Reply Posted October 18, 2008

inettopic wrote...

Great lens. Been looking for some Firefox tweaks for one of my computers that seems to be slow loading and reacting. Will definitely try what I've read and let you know how it turned out.

ReplyPosted October 18, 2008

kezan98 wrote...

This is great, I never new this stuff and I'm a big ban of FireFox. Gave you a 5 :)

ReplyPosted October 18, 2008

view all 70 comments

Vote For Your Favorite Firefox Video 

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Plug-ins To Help Your Life Run Faster And Easier 

Answers
1-Click Answers TM will save you even more time with AnswerTips that instantly deliver the information you are looking for. Just point at any word, hold the Alt key (Ctrl in Linux) and click. Upon letting go, an AnswerTip in the form of a pop-up "information bubble" appears on the screen explaining the term.
AdaptiveBlue: The Makers of BlueOrganizer and SmartLinks
nteract With Things: BlueOrganizer recognizes things like books, music, wine, restaurants and travel destinations in the web pages and links that you browse, making it easier for you to connect to relevant information about those things.

Access Information Faster: BlueOrganizer helps you save time by navigating the web via smart, context-sensitive shortcuts with BlueMenu. And because BlueOrganizer understands your context, the relevant information is always just a click away.

Find What Matters to You: BlueOrganizer's BlueMenu shortcuts are automatically personalized based on your browsing history. BlueMenu always takes you to relevant information on sites that you like and use.

Help Power a Smarter Web: Share Smart Browsing with your friends and family by posting SmartLinks on your blogs and social network profiles.
"Simply put, BlueOrganizer turns your right mouse button into a jumping-off point that leads to dozens of web services. Right-click on a word, a product, a company, a person or a link anywhere on the web and the add-on will give you a context-sensitive menu full of ways to learn more about and do more with whatever term you're interested in." - Michael Calore, Wired Magazine.
Fasterfox - Performance and network tweaks for Firefox.
Fasterfox - Performance and network tweaks for Firefox.

Funny Firefox Photos 

Bare Metal by t3rmin4t0r

Bare Metal

Sweet Ride by t3rmin4t0r

Sweet Ride

ready to start in bluescreen style by nois3lab

ready to start in bl...

The set up by nois3lab

The set up

Caged by bensonkua

Caged

Ocean Park - 15 by ryan_fung

Ocean Park - 15

Ocean Park - 7 by ryan_fung

Ocean Park - 7

Ocean Park - 12 by ryan_fung

Ocean Park - 12

Ocean Park - 11 by ryan_fung

Ocean Park - 11

Ocean Park - 14 by ryan_fung

Ocean Park - 14

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by Rossman

I am a    Registered Nurse. I live in Tampa, Florida with my two Siamese cats, Arlo, and Timmy

 

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