How to Make Firefox Load Faster

I found some other ways to speed up firefox http://howtohacklife101.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-make-firefox-faster.html

If Firefox Is very... S-L-O-W... to load at start-up,....
PLEASE try this: (Non-Techie)
Very simple: If you do have several (or LOTS more...) Add-ons..., at the top of Firefox, Go to Tools > Options > Advanced Tab > Below Click on the "Update" tab > Under "Automatically Check for Updates to:" > UN-CHECK (Remove the Check mark) from "Add-ons". Hit "Okay" at the bottom. Now try re-starting Firefox.... I hope it starts up MUCH quicker for you now,....
HOWEVER..... You must now remember to occasionally do the following:
Go to: Tools > Add-ons > Select "Extensions" at the top > At the bottom-right, hit the "Find Updates" button.... Also, at the top of this window do the same for "Plugins". This is necessary since you have disabled the "Automatically Check for updates" of your "Add-ons".
(I found this "help" on a "Bing" search.)
This made Firefox load in less than 3 seconds,.... instead of MANY seconds..... I hope that this is HELPFUL to all who need it.

Not quite. What UPX does is compress exe files for fast startup, then decompress them afterward. In most cases this and the speedyfox is useless junk unless you have a ton of settings, addons, bookmarks, etc and your firefox is extremely slow to begin with. One way to keep down firefox startup times is to keep addons at a minimum and only have a couple bookmarks. I like to keep a text document with a bunch of bookmark links if I need them in the future... if you have tons of bookmarks. Another way is to buy more ram (or just buy a faster computer), and/or change ram cache setting in the about:config.

It's completely hit and miss, some .dll's will decompress faster than others, but on the whole and in my experience it's faster to just load the exe directly to memory instead of compress/decompress program files. This CAN BE extremely fast if you know what you're doing, and want to disable or change some .dlls. Otherwise I see no benefit to the average user. If you add a program to make another program faster, the end result is you're still using two programs instead of one ;)

If you want firefox to start faster on startup with an already fast computer or you don't care about boot up times, prefetch the executable file manually. Check your prefetch file for firefox and add it's corresponding .exe if it isn't there (yet), windows will add programs to your prefetch automatically or if prefetches have been deleted over a series of subsequent bootups. To give you an idea, this is similar to what the program "fasterfox" does with browser links. Fasterfox is another example of too much for too little, if you have a fast internet and a lot of ram, your internet isn't going to be faster prefetching every link on the page.

This morning (Indonesia Western Time) I tried runing my FF-368 after selecting the 'compatibility' from 'default status' (= unchecked) to 'Windows 2000' as well as 'Windows 98/ME'. Both options don't work. FF even won't start.

I have found it myself. Thank you anyway.

Anonymous on Sun, 06/13/2010 - 18:01 wrote :
"Just go to properties and compatibility then press windows 2000".
Where can I find that 'Properties and Compatibility' stuff.
Thanks

just go to properties and compatibility then press windows 2000

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.