As I noticed great interest in Firefox and a lot here are using it, here are some tricks and hacks that I believe it gives better experience and speed the browser up. I also found that Firefox 64bit is much faster than the 32 version but of course more resources are consumed.
Speed up Firefox
First, in Options
- Remove Use smooth scrolling. Personally, I don’t remove this as I like it.
- Remove Always check to see if Firefox is the default browser on startup.
- Select the Network section, click the Settings button, and select ‘No Proxy’ if you aren’t behind a proxy.
- Disable Firefox auto-update (could have some security risk if you don’t check for updates regularly)
Second, type this in URL bar about:config and click enter – be extra careful here. Search for the following codes and change as explained and based on your preferences:
- “animat” Disable some animation by double clicks on the true values to change them to false – choose what you want, you don’t have to disable them all
- “browser.bookmarks.max_backups” Reduce number of bookmark backups to speed up shutdown from 15 to 2.
- “browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo” Reduce number of closed windows you can undo from 3 to 1.
- “browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo” Reduce number of closed tabs you can undo from 10 to 4.
- “loop.enabled” Disable Firefox Hello. This has already been removed from the latest versions
- “extensions.pocket.enabled” Disable Pocket. However, you might need to remove the icon from toolbar first if any.
- “reader.parse-on-load.enabled” Disable reader view. Personally, I like it.
- “Recentlybookmarked” to disable Recently bookmarked sites from showing on menu.
- “browser.urlbar.maxRichResults” change from 10 to 6 (or less). This is the number of suggestions in the Awesome bar Dropdown.
If you’re using old versions of Firefox, make sure of the plugins and don’t activate those you don’t really need.
Additional Hacks
1- Google Calendar as default WebCal
Go to Google Calendar’s site and press Ctrl+Shift+K. Paste this after the >> sign at the bottom:
navigator.registerProtocolHandler("webcal","https://google.com/calendar/render?cid=%s","Google Calendar");
Click Enter and then Add application button that appears below the toolbar.
This similarly can be applied for Outlook.com calendar or mail in “mailto” options. However, we just need to figure out the appropriate link. I haven’t used those additional hacks since long time ago…
2- Hide address bar in pop up window
In about:config, change “dom.disable_window_open_feature.location” to False
3- Duplicate Bookmarks
I haven’t faced this in ages. However, in case it happened:
- Delete all bookmarks manually
- Close Firefox
- Go into profile directory and delete everything beginning with “places.sqlite.”
- Restore bookmarks. You do have a backup of bookmarks, don’t you?
- Restart
Have used firefox a few times in the past, I usualy prefeer google personally, liked reading this and found your firefix hacks useful.
Thank you Melissa. Yes, a lot prefer Google Chrome especially if they use a lot of Google services
I generally use google but if you are working on a notebook computer with limited storage Chrome can take up a huge hunk of your available memory. Thanks for sharing the Firefox hacks. It probably runs better with less memory than Chrome but I’m hooked to Chrome now.
You’re most welcome Darlene. Yes, I believe Firefox might be better with low resources computers – mainly the 32bit version. These hacks will even give better performance.
FireFox, heard of it but I always read it was slow. Don’t know much about FireFox. Always read that Chrome was the best and faster browser.
Yes, Chrome got all the fame. Firefox is the preferred one for many though. Chrome isn’t the fastest any more. Thank you very much Crystal
That’s news to me. My research always said Chrome was the faster of all browsers and better too. Who knew?
I think it’s more into personal preferences. Chrome is still one of the best. My main browser is FF and I prefer it for programming too
Thanks for info
I don’t use Firefox, but this is very informative.
Thank you very much Joanna… Hope it might be of a help for those who are (or thinking of) using Firefox
I use Firefox, Google, and the Edge. Firefox is my favorite and Google comes in second. The Edge (IE), I use only for certain sites. Thank you for the tips.
You’re most welcome Franci. Me too, I see future for Edge; too bad they don’t have Android’s version.