There are several ways to speed up the download and performance of the Firefox browser. You can use the Prefetch function, change a number of settings in the about: config window, or use third-party utilities like Firefox Booster.
There are several ways to speed up the launch of the Firefox browser.
Prefetch function
Users of Widows XP and Vista operating systems can use the built-in Prefetch function to speed up the browser. It works in such a way that it monitors the launch of frequently used applications and stores the necessary data in a special folder. During program startup, Windows accesses this folder and takes from it all the information necessary to launch the application.
To apply the Prefetch function to Firefox, you need to right-click on the program shortcut and select "Properties" in the context menu that opens. On the "Shortcut" tab, find the "Object" field, where the path to the program is indicated and add the text to the end of the path: Prefetch: 1. The next time you start Firefox, the system will use hashing, which will speed up the loading of the browser.
Browser setting
You can improve Firefox performance by adjusting your browser settings. To do this, open a new tab in Firefox and write about: config in the address bar. A window will appear in front of you, warning that you need to be careful when changing browser settings. Click on the OK button. Then change the following parameters:
network.http.pipelining - true
network.http.proxy.pipelining - true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests - 8
nglayout.initialpaint.delay - 0
To quickly find the desired parameter, enter its name in the search field located at the top of the settings page. To change the value of a parameter, just double-click on the current value and select (or enter) a new one.
In the case of the nglayout.initialpaint.delay parameter, you need to create it. To do this, right-click in an empty space on the settings page and select "New" in the menu that opens, then "Integer". After that, specify the nglayout.initialpaint.delay parameter and enter the value "0".
Thanks to such a change in the settings, the browser will use several requests at once when connecting, without waiting for the server's response, and will start rendering the page instantly.
Additionally, you can speed up the launch and operation of Firefox by changing the following parameters:
browser.sessionhistory.max_entries - 10
browser.cache.memory.enable - True
browser.cache.disk.capacity - 4096
config.trim_on_minimize - True
Thanks to these settings, the browser will be able to reduce the number of web page addresses stored in the history, store some data necessary for work in the cache, optimize the cache size and delete unnecessary parameters from memory.
Third party utilities
You can also speed up the launch and operation of Firefox using third-party utilities. Thus, the Firefox Booster application is able to independently optimize the browser settings, which improves its performance.
