There's a lot of zeros and ones abused on the web about how to make Firefox go faster. After trying almost everyone's "gotta haves" these are the ones that seem to work for me.
Indeed, I'm a speed junkie. Why go slow, when you can do a LITTLE maintenance and go MUCH faster? But I don't like to carry around lots of customizations, so if I have to rebuild/reinstall my computer, I want to be able to do it quickly. Bottom line? ...yes you can go faster with more tweeks, but I find the cost of all the modifications not worth the investment in time and effort. And these will make a significant difference.
1. Install an ad blocker. Folks need to find another way to make the web pay than all the obnoxious pop ups and banner ads. It's almost like they build the billboards IN the highway now.
Try adblock plus. After you install it you need to restart Firefox. As you restart it will ask you to subscribe to a subscrition service. The default one is fine for USA-based users.
2. Install an script blocker. Well, folks DID find another way to make the web pay. They collect information about everything that you do and then sell it. It's almost like a jounior high school lunch room where there are really NO secrets, though everyone pretends there are. The advertisers do this snooping and sharing without actually telling you that they are. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
Try ghostery. After you install it you need to configure it to block stuff, a process that can be rather confusing to the uninitiated. I disable the pop up telling me it worked...largely because it is annoying to see how effective the tool is and how pervasive this new form of "stealth" monitoring is!
3. Increase pipelining. Make more things happen at the same time when loading a page. As delivered, the browser it set up to be pretty "safe". Enabling this technology can really make a difference.
Type in the Address Bar - about:config. (Watch closely at the warning that pops up next! It is some of the last visages of humor in a delivered piece of software.) In the filter field type "pipe". Alter the following setting:
network.http.pipelining: true
network.http.pipelining.ssl: true
network.http.proxy.pipelining: true
optionally you can increase this next value a bit, but I find it's unnecessary
network.http.pipelining.maxrequest: 8
4. Disable extensions
Start by disabling them ALL (except your ad and script blockers, of course!) Unless your distribution needs one, e.g. Unbuntu adds a small one. Typicall extensions don't normally do much when you really think about it. If you don't have the guts to remove them, then disable them and restart the browser.
Hypocritical comment: yes, there are some that I enable on an "as needed basis": Firebug, Uppity.
5. Upgrade Firefox as it's available.
The new javascript engines are dramatically faster, though not the fastest. But keep an eye on your plugins to ensure they'll be ready for the new frenetic release schedule for Mozilla.
