How to Make Firefox Load Faster

I tried the above steps (with the amended shell help from below.) Firefox takes just as long to open, but now nothing loads. After a couple more minutes, this error message appears: [Java Script Application] Error loading tz data version files! Status:0

I tried step 5 but the problem persists.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I have XP and Firefox took anywhere from 1-1.5 minutes to load. Added more ram and now it takes 15 seconds. Alot of things began to work faster.

This utility made my FF3 load really fast. Just run it periodically to clean up the SQLite database.

http://www.crystalidea.com/speedyfox

Don't know how many people are still reading this topic by my solution was to run portable apps versions of both Firefox and Thunderbird on my hard drive. They load quickly by comparison.
gwiz

what about us (lame) mac users?

This method never works for me. But fasterfox lite does work for me. It should be considered to change this review to at least add fasterfox lite.

Are you suggesting that the great firefox is..... slow!? Probably those 457 add ons needed to make it great.

An easier way to make firefox load faster-
Right click on your firefox icon and select the properties tab, where it says Compatability, check "Run this program in compatibility mode for" and select "Windows 2000" from the drop down menu.

Firefox loads faster on my laptop (Windows XP) after doing this, if it doesn't work for you, you can easily revert by unchecking "Run this program in compatiblity mode for" and try the way on this page. It's worth it to try this way first because I don't think it would have any side effects this way. This way might be just as good as the way on this page so try this easy trick first.

hi , Firefox is 1 to 2 second faster but chk out its memory usage...
for a blank window.. normally firefox takes about 33,000 k

but after upx ing the exe s and dll it increased to 49,000k starup (atleast)
and it reached upto 96,000k after 5 mins....

i am usin vista ultimate, amd 64 x2

so i guess this is not a good choice.

hi there!
I'm looking to get help to fix the problem with Firefox. This started a couple of days ago, and it's really annoying.Any search i do, I'm getting not the web site I'm clicking on, but something different, mostly advertisement and porn websites. When I click to go back button, or try to close the window, it will bring me the requested web site.Just wondering: is this a common thing or something very unusual, because i never heard about such a problem with Firefox before.
thank you in advance,
John, Toronto.

Hey gizmo when you say download the UPX which upx there are many upx

Thank-you Mr Gizmo,

This has worked wonders for me!

Hi,

Thank you, Gizmo, for the nice tip (and the rest of your work).

However, I got fed up by executing this for all the new releases of FF3 of late (which seem to install in my system to a new home directory every time), so I wrote a batch file that tries to retrieve the FF home folder from the registry.
I wrote this for FF3, worked like a charm on FF3.5, 3.6 and 3.7 now with my (en-gb) version.
If you find that Firefox installs into a version-specific folder, you might benefit from this (maybe it's just me being signed up for the Beta program :-S)

Unfortunately, this is not for noobs, some shell knowledge is necessary.

Paste the following text in a batch file (f.i. create a new text file on your desktop and give it the name "FF_LoadFast.bat"). Make sure that UPX.exe is in some folder which is in your path (I advice you not to put it in c:\windows\system32, I think that is bad form. Instead, create a tools folder and put that in the beginning of the PATH environment variable), or else include the path to the UPX installation folder in the final FOR command.

I hope that somebody benefits from this.

Regards,

E.

rem *** Start of batch file ***
@echo off
set ERRORLEVEL=0
set VERSION=
set REGBASE=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Mozilla
set REGCMD=reg query "%REGBASE%\Mozilla Firefox" /v CurrentVersion
for /f "usebackq tokens=3,* skip=4" %%I in (`%REGCMD%`) do (
  if %ERRORLEVEL% neq 0 goto :ERR_VERSION
  set VERSION=%%I
)
echo Identified version: %VERSION%
set REGCMD=reg query "%REGBASE%\Mozilla Firefox %VERSION%\bin" /v PathToExe
for /f "usebackq tokens=2,* skip=4" %%I in (`%REGCMD%`) do (
  if %ERRORLEVEL% neq 0 goto :ERR_EXE
  set FF_HOME=%%~dpJ
)
if not exist "%FF_HOME%\firefox.exe" goto :ERR_EXE
echo Identified Firefox home directory: %FF_HOME%
for %%I in ("%FF_HOME%\*.exe" "%FF_HOME%\*.dll" "%FF_HOME%\plugins\*.dll" "%FF_HOME%\components\*.dll") do upx "%%I" 
:end
exit /b

:ERR_VERSION
echo ***ERR: The current version of FireFox could not be determined.
goto :ERR_END

:ERR_EXE
echo ***ERR: Firefox home directory not found!
goto :ERR_END

:ERR_END
echo Reg query returned:
echo %REGCMD%
%REGCMD%
pause
goto :END

rem *** End of batch file ***

Easier way to spped up firefox, right click on firefox icon and select compatability and put a check mark in compatability mode and select windows 2000. It makes my firefox(on XP) load a lot faster!

Trust me, it's faster now but not sure by how much.

The startup speed was definitely increased, but it lagged the overall performance, especially when changing into tabs with an image file (I view a lot of large ones, for my wallpaper collection). Not recommended.

Some extensions don't work afterwards

Works like a charm for me, more than 2x faster. I used to switch to Chrome for faster loading and short time usage. :)

Worked great for me.

I've tried and measured before and after ... absolutely no improvement in the loading time: 30 seconds in both situations, take or leave two seconds (FF 2.0.0.20)

Thanks

"shell to a command prompt in the Firefox installation directory"

hw to do this

It works well. Thanks Gizmo.

Nice this worked, i did this while firefox was still running but whatever lol.

write %%v instead if %v

ran the for loop, FF loaded more than twice as fast, (win xp, amd), I like upx a lot.

Thanks, I feel it faster but I'm not sure coz I don't know how to measure it.. please tell me if anyone know bout it.. Thank you..

hi,i was using latest ff 3 version, but went back to using ff v2.0.0.16..just found it to b much more stable, and can also use all my ff addon which u can't with the "new" ff 3v...anyway,i've tried faster fox,but as previously stated there is a small prog avail at sourceforge called firefox preloader and it speeds up start-up by 2x..for loading pgs a ff addon called tweak network settings does the job. i have windows xp home w/512mb ram and 1.5gb virtual ram.

A simpler way is with--http://www.majorgeeks.com/FireTune_d4534.html
suitable for Foxy 3 as well.

Hmmn, just a question. Should I keep the files compressed when there is an update? You see, recently I had an error renaming bookmarks that is related to the main Firefox files. I had packed them before, and also got through an update, but somewhere along the way this inability appeared (noticeably after i accidentally clicked something). I fixed this by reinstalling Firefox without deleting any of my personal data. Please answer.

How do I download firefox3 without the download being blocked by IE? I've tried everything but am unable to download anything from anyone without getting blocked by an error message from IE that the "site is unavailable or cannot be found" which is the main reason I want to download firefox. Please advise