There have been tons of Firefox hacks out there that have been covered to death, but we've recently taken some time out and run a side-by-side comparison on a couple of identical computers from the shop we had laying around. What did we find? You can essentially double your browsing speed if you're currently on a broadband connection if you just run a few simple tweaks. We have a set of three. That's not too many for you, right? Now let's get started.
[Fixed the "s", Thanks SpamBacon!]
Basically, what we found is that Firefox tends to eat a lot of RAM in exchange for quicker launching and handling of the browser. It's a pretty steep trade-off, and for those of us with tons of RAM and a broadband connection usually end up seeing no difference or at times, even slower performance than if these restrictions weren't enabled by default. Here's how to take them off and harness the full power of Firefox:
Reduce the amount of RAM Firefox uses for it’s cache feature
Try this:1) Type “about:config” (no quotes) in the address bar in the browser.
2) Find “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers”
3) Set it’s value to “0“;(Zero)
Increase the Speed in Which Firefox loads pages
1) Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit Enter. (Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.)2) Alter the entries as follows:
Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 10.This means it will make 10 requests at once.
3) Lastly, right-click anywhere and select New->Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0“;.(Zero)
This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages faster now.
Optionally (for even faster web browsing) here are some more options for your about:config (you might have to create some of these entries by Right Click –> New– >Interger or String
“network.dns.disableIPv6”: set “false”
“content.notify.backoffcount”: set “5”; (Five)
“ui.submenuDelay”: set “0”; (Zero)
Reduce RAM usage to 10mb when Firefox is minimized
This little hack will drop Firefox’s RAM usage down to 10 Mb when minimized:1) Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2) Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3) In the box that pops up enter “config.trim_on_minimize”. Press Enter.
4) Now select True and then press Enter.
5) Restart Firefox.
These simple tweaks will make your web browsing with Mozilla Firefox at least twice as fast and it's a pretty simple thing anybody can do. Enjoy and let us know if these steps helped you!
Update: If you're looking to reverse these settings, try the steps listed here.
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I don't want to be the first/only skeptic, but I tried all these steps and double checked them... my browser seems to be running at the same speed as before. No damage was done however, so it's not the end of the world in any way.
I tried it, and it seems to work.
My, perhaps naive, question is: If you can speed up firefox with the configuration settings, why aren't these speedier settings the default?
Can anyone tell this newbie Firefox user how to get it to open links in a new window instead of changing the page you are on?
BayRidger:
You can open a link in a new window or new tab by right-mouse-clicking on the link and selecting it in the context menu. A quicker way to open a link in a new tab is to hold the CTRL button while clicking the link. There are also lots of add-ons on the Firefox website that let you tweak how Firefox behaves when you click on links. I personally like QuickDrag because it lets me slightly drag a link if I want to open it in a new tab.
Nice!!!
Using pipelining is a real asshole manoeuvre. Do you really think it would be a good thing if everyone started sending 10 rapid requests to a server every time they attempted to load a page? All of a sudden servers would have to deal with 10 times the number of requests. I'm sure your admins will love you for giving you readers the idea.
BayRidger:
Shift click = open link in new window
Ctrl click = open link in new tab
Also,
Alt Tab = switch between windows
Ctrl Tab = switch between tabs
Alt F4 = close window
Ctrl F4 = close tab
I also just learned my new favorite feature... CTRL Shift T will open up the last tab you closed... useful for when you accidentally close a tab!
The correct setting to reduce the amount of RAM Firefox uses for it’s cache feature is
browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers
(notice the "s" at the end), with a value of "0" (zero).
Source: Mozilla Support Page.
the easiest way to open a new tab with a link, imo, is to push the center click button (pushing down on your mouse wheel, assuming you have one). It's a default and not an addon. Though if you don't have a center click then you can always just hold CTRL and click the link. And CTRL T is open a blank new tab.
If only I was still using Firefox!! I switched to Google Chrome a while back, and I find it far more versatile.
(And yes, I know some people don't like the idea of GC because it's another way that Google can look at your browsing habits in order to target advertisements, but frankly, if I am going to have advertisements thrown in my face, I'd much rather they were relevant to me!!)
Given that Google Chrome is essentially a tweaked version of Firefox, will the same hacks work?
Thanks, cptnruthless!
After changes, I saw about a 10% speed improvement. Not huge, but noticeable enough.
How does one right click when one's working with a touchpad? I'm on a mac laptop, no mouse. And this is in reference to Step 3, under "Increase the Speed in Which Firefox loads pages".
Have you tried the magical command click killer combo?
Command-double-click allows one to change the integer value of the previously selected preference [network.http.pipelining.maxrequests]. But does not allow one to select New->Integer, or name it.
Command-click does nothing.
How can Step 3, under "Increase the Speed in Which Firefox loads pages" be done by folks who aren't using a mouse?
Hi. A grammatical note: "it's" means "it is;" "its" is the possessive.
"How does one right click when one's working with a touchpad? I'm on a mac laptop, no mouse."
Place two fingers on the pad and click the button. That's the macbook version of right click.
Thanks mscot.
For anyone else on a mac laptop trying to right-click, enable mscot's suggestion by going to System Preferences> Keyboard & Mouse> Trackpad. Under Trackpad Gestures, put a checkmark in to the box next to "Place two fingers on trackpad and click button for secondary click".
if you're on an older mac laptop, you can also click while holding control and it will give you the right click options.
Howdy & Thanks for the easy to follow instructions... My old Mac is Now as Fast as my New Mac...
I can't wait to go home and try this on my old G4 laptop! Our "high speed" internet connection lags big time, so I'm anxious to see if this makes any difference.
jojomodjo:
I highly doubt anything to do with Firefox will work on Chrome. It's not anything close to a slightly tweaked version of firefox. The entire premise of it and the way it works is entirely different than any browser. Main diff: Instead of a new tab bloating the browser process, each new tab IS a new process, in the end saving your memory form dead space when you close tabs.
Also the way it deals with browsing info and history is way different, which is why it is so different, but is also why not every page that works in firefox will work in Chrome.
Ah, this may be unrelated - but after doing all of this I have noticed fire fox crashing. Yesterday it happened a few times, and has been happening all week.
Is it related?
I switched to Firefox a few weeks ago & notice that it crashes constantly. I also find the browsing speed to be slow, perhaps these adjustments will help.
My Firefox has been unstable ever since I did this. Please can you post instructions to change back to original settings? Or send them to me via e-mail? Please!
Staxx, there's some instructions to reverse it listed at the end of the article, but I'll repost below:
http://cormacmoylan.com/blog/browsers/how-to-do-a-factory-restore-to-firefoxs-default-settings.eire
That said, it works great for me. Perhaps people are trying it on connections slower than 3Mbps?
All said, Firefox runs pretty fast for me as is.
The link to reverse it is to do a **factory restore to Firefox default settings** !!!!!!! I do NOT want to change everything I've ever changed in Firefox, just the settings from this article.
Might I suggest an elaboration to the instructions that will make this easy, for example:
current 3) Set it’s value to “0“;(Zero)
update 3) Set it’s value *from "1" (One)* to “0“;(Zero)
Please help me reverse ONLY these changes! It has been negative for my system, making it too unstable.
None of these settings will change how quickly data gets from the web server to your browser (apart from maybe the pipelining, but see poundsend's comment on why this isn't always a good idea).
All you are doing is making the application "snappier", which might speed up the rendering of web-pages.
And I'm not sure if using the "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" hack will mess up the display of sites that use JQuery or other javascript libraries (almost all sites these days), and rely on a bit of tweaking before displaying the rendered site. You might get blinks and quick redraws ... maybe?
@poundsend, I'm going to call BS. Are you in fact one of these beleaguered server administrators, or how else are you getting this insight? Do you even know what HTTP pipelining does?
A page loaded with HTTP pipelining doesn't result in any more HTTP requests than a page loaded without pipelining. Pipelining serializes requests; it doesn't add requests. In fact, by reducing the number of TCP packets the server has to deal with, you could argue that load is reduced for both client, server, and every hop in between.
If you're worried about bursty loads all arriving at once, please stop. Servers often encounter nearly simultaneous requests and are able to queue them and handle them effectively. The ability to quickly fill all sub-requests related to a page-load allows the server to close the connection more quickly with pipelining clients, thus also reducing server load (as fewer connections are open at any given time).
Nice article. I followed the steps and can see a big improvement already. This is great for me. I often end up with 10 tabs open at a time, just waiting for them to load.
And I thought all the while I was just having problems with my server! I switched to Google Chrome because of these speed problems I've been encountering when loading pages on Firefox. Thanks for the insight!
JMedical Billing and Coding
Great article