{"id":1075,"date":"2009-08-02T12:37:46","date_gmt":"2009-08-02T17:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bspcn.com\/2009\/08\/02\/the-ultimate-guide-to-speeding-up-firefox-3-5\/"},"modified":"2009-08-02T12:37:46","modified_gmt":"2009-08-02T17:37:46","slug":"the-ultimate-guide-to-speeding-up-firefox-3-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/02\/the-ultimate-guide-to-speeding-up-firefox-3-5\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate Guide To Speeding Up Firefox 3.5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Written by Mahendra Palsule<\/a><\/p>\n I like Firefox but it’s not as fast as it used to be. This is a comprehensive, safe guide to optimizing Firefox 3.5 for speedy browsing. For each suggestion, your mileage may vary. Before you proceed, create a new profile.<\/strong><\/p>\n Quit Firefox, run “firefox.exe -profilemanager”, and create a new profile to experiment on. Use the new profile as your default only if your performance improves. Only those changes needed from a default installation are mentioned in this guide.<\/p>\n If you’re using Windows, use an optimized build of Firefox 3.5.1<\/a> for your processor. Use Swiftfox<\/a> for Linux.<\/p>\n Set your homepage<\/a> to about:blank<\/strong>. Use only must-have extensions with the default theme. Use Adblock Plus<\/a> and Flashblock<\/a> to block unwanted<\/a> ads and Flash.<\/p>\n In Options->Main<\/strong>, choose a folder for your downloads and save all downloads to it automatically. Close the download window automatically when all downloads are finished. Turn off download history in Options->Privacy<\/strong>, Custom settings for history<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Options->Applications<\/strong>, modify the following Content Types<\/em>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In general, open files separately, rather than from within the browser wherever possible.<\/p>\n In Options->Advanced->Network<\/strong>, increase Offline Storage<\/em> (size of the disk cache) to 150 MB.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Options->Privacy<\/strong>, use Custom settings for history<\/em>, and reduce length of remembered history to 15 days.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Options->Advanced->General->Accessibility<\/strong>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Drop-down In the search box, select Manage Search Engines<\/strong>\u2026, and remove any search engines that you will never use.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you have a lot of bookmarks in Firefox, you might have dead links, or even duplicate bookmarks. Clean them up using the CheckPlaces<\/a> Firefox extension, and uninstall after you’re done.<\/p>\n Firefox checks Live Bookmarks<\/em> every hour for updates. Use a dedicated RSS Reader like Google Reader instead. Delete the preset Latest Headlines<\/em> Live Bookmark.<\/p>\n If you prefer a nice GUI to tweak advanced settings, use these performance enhancing Firefox extensions. If you are the DIY type, these optimizations (and many more) are covered in the next sections.<\/p>\n The following two sections are advanced Firefox configuration changes that are simple to make. Enter about:config<\/strong> in the Firefox address bar in an empty tab. Click ‘I’ll be careful, I promise<\/strong>!’. You can use Firefox’s Safe Mode<\/a> and select ‘Reset all user preferences to Firefox defaults’<\/em> to undo any changes you make. Also, entries you change are displayed in bold, and can be reset using the right-click context-menu.<\/p>\n If an entry does not exist, create it by right-clicking on an empty space, selecting New<\/strong>, and choosing the type of entry as listed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You can use these recommended values or tweak them as per your system, preference, and browsing habits.<\/p>\n These changes are recommended for broadband users with at least a 2 Mbps (256 kB\/s) connection<\/em>.<\/p>\n Did these optimizations make your Firefox 3.5 faster? Tell us in the comments!<\/p>\n1. Use an Optimized Build of Firefox<\/strong><\/h3>\n
2. Use Blank Homepage, Default Theme, Minimal Extensions<\/strong><\/h3>\n
3. Optimize Download Options<\/strong><\/h3>\n
4. Customize Content Type Handling<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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5. Increase Cache, Reduce History Size<\/strong><\/h3>\n
6. Customize General Advanced Options<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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7. Remove Unused Search Engines<\/strong><\/h3>\n
8. Clean up bookmarks, avoid Live Bookmarks<\/strong><\/h3>\n
9. Performance Enhancing Extensions<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Advanced About:Config Tweaks<\/strong><\/h3>\n
10. Advanced Browser Settings<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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11. Advanced Network Settings<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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