7 easy ways to make Firefox faster
1. Click-To-Play Flash Content
First thing I do whenever I start using a new browser is to disable Flash content or simply set it to “click-to-play.” Many websites still use Adobe Flash player to load videos and other flash content, including ads. This leads to taking more time to load a page even if you don’t want to see the flash content. When set to “click-to-play,” flash content will only load when you click on it, thus giving you full control.
To set flash content to “click-to-play” in Firefox:
1. Click on the Firefox main menu in the top right corner and then click on “Add-ons.”
2. On the add-ons page, click on the “Plugins” button on the left side and search for “Shockwave Flash” plugin.
3. Click on the drop-down menu next to it, and select “Ask to Activate.” You can also completely disable flash if you don’t use it at all.
This is another common thing you can do to speed up browsers, including Firefox. Add-ons and extensions take up resources, therefore also slow down your browser if there are too many. You should disable the add-ons that you don’t use to get the best performance. Although you can just go to the “Add-ons” page from the main Firefox menu and disable/remove the ones you don’t need, it is best to make a decision according to how much resources an add-on is taking.
For this purpose you can use the extension “about:addons-memory 2016.” Install this extension and visit the page about:addons-memory, and you will see all the installed add-ons and how much resources each one is using. Use this information to remove the one that uses loads of resources but benefits you less.
If you are continuously using Firefox and find it slowing down, then you can free up some memory to speed it up. To do so, type about:memory in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. On the next page click on “Minimize memory usage” under “Free memory” to free up memory.
This is a neat little hack that lets Firefox create multiple connections with a server instead of just one to speed up the page loading speed (similar to what a download manager like IDM does). To enable Pipelining, enter about:config in the Firefox address bar and hit Enter. Here you need to search for the below-mentioned entries and change their status to what is mentioned below:
network.http.pipelining -> true
network.http.pipelining.aggressive -> true
Network.http.pipelining.maxrequests -> 8
Network.http.pipelining.ssl -> true
To quickly find all of these options, type network.http.pipelining in the search bar and then double click on the value column next to each entry to change it. You can check out Derrik’s detailed article regarding Firefox Pipelining to get more details.
If you don’t like doing all this manually, then you can also use Pipelining Firefox add-on to automatically do all this for you.
Similar to how you can speed up a Windows PC by disabling animations, you can also speed up Firefox by disabling its animations. To disable animations in Firefox, type about:config in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. Now type “animate” in the top search bar, and set the value to all entries that show up to “False.” This should make your browsing experience faster, but you will lose all the smooth animations that make the browser look cool.
Similar to Chrome there are many add-ons available for Firefox that can help speed up your Firefox experience. Some of the good ones are listed below.
Auto Unload Tab: This add-on will automatically unload idle tabs and free up all the resources taken by them and then let you easily load them when needed.
Image Block: This will block all the images on websites, thus leading to faster browsing, as less data will need to be downloaded. If you don’t mind browsing without images, then go for it.
Speed Tweaks: This extension can make all the tweaks we have done above in the about:config page and some additional ones as well to increase speed. You can also do all this manually, but this extension makes it a one-click process.
If the above tweaks aren’t enough or your Firefox browser is acting up (including crashes) due to continuous use, then refreshing Firefox could be a fix. Firefox lets you refresh it and change all its settings to default and remove all the third-party data (like add-ons). Type about:support in the Firefox address bar and hit Enter. Click on the “Refresh Firefox” button on the right and confirm the prompt to refresh it.
Don’t worry, this will not delete your personal data like browser history, passwords, cookies, bookmarks or auto-fills.
You can use the above-mentioned tips to speed up your Firefox experience. Some of these tips can further speed up Firefox even if it is working fine for you, so do give them a try and reap the benefits. Also, if messing with the entries in the “about:config” page is negatively affecting your browsing experience, then immediately revert the changes and let us know in the comments to help other users.