Firefox 3.5 has two known issues – huge memory consumption and long startup time. There are some users have reported waiting minutes for Firefox to start up. This post intends to provide some easy tips on speeding up the Firefox startup time and also browsing experience. The longer startup time is due to its implementation of a security feature. Firefox 3.5 requires randomness for security purposes, and on Windows, it gets this by scanning temporary folders. This is a disk-intensive process, and on computers with lots of temporary files and folders, it causes delays in startup. Though there will be a future patch to speed up Firefox 3.5 startup but until then, the solution is to clear temporary files and folders generated by Firefox.
To do it the quick way, open Control Panel, then go to Internet Options. At Browsing History, press Delete button, ensure that all options are checked and hit Delete. You can also manually clear the files by following the steps below.
For Windows XP
Empty the following folders in Windows XP:C:\Documents and Settings\*user*\Local Settings\History
C:\Documents and Settings\*user*\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
C:\Documents And Settings\*user*\Local Settings\Temp
C:\Documents And Settings\*user*\Recent
where *user* is your username.
For Windows Vista and Windows 7
Clear these folders if you use Windows 7 or Vista:%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent
%TEMP%
where %USERPROFILE% is your username.
Now for faster browsing, you may install add-on Fasterfox Lite that allows tweaks to boost performance and network for Firefox. The add-on Fasterfox Lite allows you to easily tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache and initial paint delay. On this Lite version are included options as follows:
- SSL Pipelining
- Timer-based content reflows
- UI Responsiveness
- Link Prefetching
- IPv6 DNS lookups
- Disabled Page Load Timer by default
Screenshot of Fasterfox Lite
As you can see above Fasterfox Lite comes with pre-configured tweaks to improve the browsing speed of Firefox when using most broadband internet connections. Fasterfox Lite will speed up your web browsing right out of the box with no assembly required. Do note though actual speed improvements may vary depending on the desired settings that are used and the presented testing situation. If 5bucks is not too much, do donate to the developer for making this fantastic add-on that speeds up your browsing experience with Firefox.
Install Fasterfox Lite
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