Here's how to speed up Firefox

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Here's how to speed up Firefox
started by: WoofyDugfock

Posted by WoofyDugfock on May 19 2005,12:47

You may have noticed that Firefox can seem slow to render pages, and slow to launch & open on that first page. It's one reason I use Dillo a lot. I had noticed this as compared with the awful IE under Windows.

According to Linux Journal May 2005 p88, FF organizes some of the page layout before viewing any part of the page. Similarly, FF "buffers up the incoming the incoming raw network content before it bothers to break those bytes down into something ready for display".

The following hacks are paraphrased from LJ (ibid.) and made a bit more explicit instruction-wise. I have found them to be NICE. The first could in theory shave up to 0.25 sec off the response time.

1. Type about:config in the url slot - this will open a long user interface to most of FF's mysterious deep prefs.

2. The prefs we want to change are not there in FF under DSL. To add them, right-click anywhere on the about:config interface --> new -->name, and enter:
--> nglayout.initialpaint.delay
--> integer
--> 0 (ie numeral zero).

3. Similarly, right-click again and add the following new preference:
--> content.notify.interval
--> integer
--> 5000

Both hacks should (?) probably only be done by those with reasonable processors - the second will make the cpu work hard. I use a p3 and they worked well on that. According to the FF website, changes entered in about:config take effect immediately.

On fast processors the '5000' can be decreased further in steps while watching your processor with 'top' to see how it goes (on p3 800Mhz I've tried going down to 3000 = cpu occassionally spikes at 70% but averages 25%).

Many thanks to Linux Journal.

Posted by WoofyDugfock on May 25 2005,11:56

I did think (perhaps wrongly) this was bit of information was worth the effort of typing out and posting.

If it was not a useful post, then the fact that no one responds means that neither I nor any other reader gets to learn why.

If it was a useful post, then the fact that no one responds means ...
whatever. Or perhaps you all read LJ, or this information was banal, or perhaps you're all busy. Who knows.

Posted by roberts on May 25 2005,17:54

These hacks are similar to the ones mentioned in the < post > here.
However they were not incorporated into the base iso because of the extra system demands required, as you have also noted.
These speed up hacks would be nice to have in the docs. Saved for further reference.
Thanks for sharing.

Posted by WoofyDugfock on May 25 2005,18:47

Thanks Robert.
I see the LJ one (by one of the FF developers) adds the buffer interval hack whereas Kent's post has the pipeline thing - be interesting to know if these work together or not.

Posted by tjm4fun on June 27 2005,06:54

Quote (WoofyDugfock @ May 19 2005,08:47)

2. The prefs we want to change are not there in FF under DSL. To add them, right-click anywhere on the about:config interface --> new -->name, and enter:
--> nglayout.initialpaint.delay
--> integer
--> 0 (ie numeral zero).

Don't use 0! it can actually slow the page down even more if you get into any retry's or if the site is slow.
Use a value of 50- 100.

Also be wary of the pipelining, that too can cuse problems on some sites.
In Firefox, disabling gif animations will help performance noticably.
in about: config
Find the line that says animations, and make the value once or none.