flexible and welcoming browser on the market — and boy have you made some fantastic speed-ups in the last year — but dangit, Firefox, you can still feel so slow compared to Chrome.
Firefox's flexibility comes at a cost: it takes slightly longer to start up and shut down, and generally it begins to feel sluggish after it's run for a while. The good news, however, is that Firefox is also very easy to speed up — but before we begin, it's important that you have the latest version installed. Lots of surfers still use Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 — but unless you're forced to use an old browser by your network administrator, it's well worth updating before we continue. You can check which version you have installed by clicking Help then About Firefox. If you're using Firefox 5, continue reading — otherwise, download the latest version.
Preliminary steps
One of the primary causes of slowdowns is an accumulation of add-ons. One or two won't affect your surfing, but if you keep installing them over a period of time, it can definitely impact the speed of Firefox. Now, if you use every single one of your add-ons, that's fine — but if there's some that you don't use, just disable them!
Another thing that can slow down Firefox is out-of-date add-ons.
To view your add-ons, press Ctrl + Shift + A. A new tab will pop up with a complete list of the add-ons on your computer. If you've never seen this screen before, every add-on will probably be enabled.
First, click the cog in the top right corner and then click "Check for updates." When that's finished, start scrolling through the list and click the Disable button for any add-on that you no longer use. You can safely disable any add-on in the list — and you can always re-enable add-ons at a later date.
Once you're done disabling add-ons, finish by clicking the "Restart now" button.
Block Flash and ads
Unlike add-ons, which you intentionally install, almost every web page has ads — and every single one slows down your surfing by just a little bit. In some cases, websites even use Flash ads — shiny, audiovisual ads — which can really slow down your browser.
Fortunately, Firefox has a couple of add-ons that make short work of ads and Flash: Adblock Plus and Flashblock. Adblock Plus will, by default, block almost every ad on the internet. With Flashblock, every Flash element will be replaced with a big "play" button, which you need to click if you want to see it. This includes most videos on the web, including YouTube — but you can easily disable Flashblock by right clicking and selecting "Allow Flash from this site" (see below).
Start Faster
Even the developers of Firefox, Mozilla, know that their browser is slow to start up. They're working on improvements, but for now you can install an add-on that does much the same thing. Start Faster does exactly what its name suggests. It will only work on Windows Vista and 7, too.
When you install Start Faster, you will be asked whether "svc.exe" should be allowed to make changes to your computer. Click Yes twice.
A word about tabs
If you are an enlightened surfer that makes good use of tabs, you may have noticed that Firefox can slow down a lot — and if you save your tabs when you exit, the next time you open Firefox can take ages. To alleviate this issue, install the BarTab add-on. It performs some neat background magic to keep Firefox running fast — and it will massively increase Firefox's start-up speed, too.
Finally, give Lightningfox a go!
If you're feeling daring, try out Lightningfox, a third-party version of Firefox that has been highly optimized for speed. Everything about Lightningfox should be faster — and for the most part, it will act and feel just like normal Firefox. There will be a few quirks, though — and you shouldn't use it for internet banking, or other sensitive transactions.
The main thing is that Lightningfox doesn't interfere with your normal version of Firefox — so you can take Lightningfox for a spin, and if you don't like it, just switch back to Firefox.
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