Firefox, as well as other web browsers, become slower and slower over time and can be caused by a number of reasons. However, this does not mean that nothing can be done about it. In this post I will show you 10 ways how to speed up Firefox and increase the speed of loading web pages.
Table of Contents
1. Disable the Adobe Flash Player plug-in.
The first thing to do to speed up Firefox is to disable or limit the Adobe Flash Player plugin . Most websites use Flash to display multimedia content, such as video files or advertisements, which are very annoying because they turn on automatically when they enter the website.
Loading multimedia files takes quite a long time and significantly extends the page loading time. However, we can limit the operation of the Adobe Flash Player plug-in by setting “Ask for activation” . To do this in Firefox, follow these steps:
1. In the upper-right corner, click the Firefox main menu icon, and then click Add-ons . You can also use the CTRL + SHIFT + A keyboard shortcut .
2. Select Plugins from the menu on the left , and then find the ” Shockwave Flash ” plugin .
3. Next to the plug-in name on the right is a pull-down menu from which you should select ” Ask for activation “. You can turn off Flash completely by selecting Never activate.
2. Reduce memory usage
If you have been using Firefox for a long time and suddenly started to slow down, reducing memory consumption can also help slightly speed up Firefox. Just type “about:memory” in the address bar and then click the “Minimize memory usage” button .
3. Turn off animation
It’s not about disabling animations that display on web pages, only about Firefox animations. To do this, enter ” about:config” in the address bar , then confirm that you will be careful. In the search engine, enter ” animate ” and change the value to ” false ” in the three following positions:
browser.download.animateNotifications -> false
browser.fullscreen.animate -> false
browser.tabs.animate -> false
4. Enabling the “pipelining” function
Turning on the “pipelining” function allows you to send more queries, so that page loading can be reduced by up to two times. To enable pipelining in Firefox, enter about: config in the address bar and then pipelining in the search engine. A fairly long list will be displayed, in which we need to change 4 options, namely:
network.http.pipelining -> true
network.http.pipelining.aggressive -> true
Network.http.pipelining.ssl -> true
Network.http.pipelining.maxrequests -> 8
Set values in 3 options from false to true and in the fourth from 4 to 8 .
5. Clear browsing history
When browsing websites, the entire history is saved, i.e. all pages visited, login details, downloaded files and other temporary files. We should clear your browsing history from time to time not only for the reasons of slower browser operation, but also primarily for security. To do this, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Delete, then select all and click Clear now .
6. Turn off unnecessary add-ons
Disabling unnecessary add-ons will probably not speed up the loading of websites, but it can significantly affect the very operation of Firefox, especially if we have a fairly large number of add-ons that are simply unnecessary. Browse the list of installed add-ons and remove all those you don’t use at all. To check the installed add-ons, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + A .
7. Remove Adware
Adware is software that changes your browser settings, displays unwanted ads, and installs unnecessary toolbars, in other words, toolbars. This can significantly worsen the browser’s operation, as well as slow down the loading of pages to prevent it, use AdwCleaner . It’s a small and simple program that doesn’t even require installation, just scan your computer by clicking Scan and then Clean .
8. Block tracking
Firefox has a Tracking Protection feature that allows you to block sites known to track users. Enabling this feature has two benefits. Firstly, it speeds up page loading, and secondly, we are protected from being tracked by websites. To enable Tracking Protection in the address bar, type “about:config“, then search for privacy.trackingprotection.enabled and change the value to ” true “.
9. Increase the number of queries to the server
By default, Firefox limits the number of simultaneous connections to the server. Increasing this limit can speed up the loading of pages with a lot of pictures or video files. Of course, if your internet speed allows it. To do this, search for network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server and change the value to a maximum of 10 . Also search for network.http.max-connections and change the value to 256 .
10. Refresh Firefox
This option can be useful in situations where all of the above methods have no effect. By refreshing Firefox, we restore it to the factory settings. And all additions and modifications are removed. To restore Firefox to its factory settings, enter ” about:support ” in the address bar , then click ” Refresh Firefox … ”
In my opinion, these are all the best ways to speed up Firefox. I hope that the methods described here have helped you improve Firefox and speed up the loading of pages. If you know other effective ways, then share them in the comment below.
