Optimise history
Open a new web browser tab and load the page
about:config. Now filter for the term
browser.history and locate the following three parameters:
browser.history_expire_days: The
maximum days that
Firefox stores websites in the history database. (default 180)
browser.history_expire_days_min: The minimum days
that Firefox stores websites in the history database (default 90)
browser.history_expire_sites: Defines the maximum websites that are
stored in the Firefox history. Reducing
the amount from 40000 to a lower value can make an appreciable
difference to the browser's speed.
Reducing both the minimum and maximum values to a lower
number improves the performance of the web browser especially during
startup.
There are no ideal values which means that the user
needs to experiment to find the values best suited for the browsing
situation.
Suggested values are 7, 14, 28 or 56 days for both settings. To remove
the history altogether use 0 as the value in both parameters.
Speed up menus
Again, open a new web browser
tab and load the page about:config.
Make Firefox menus load faster by adding a new integer:
ui.submenuDelay
Set the value of this integer to zero. This
removes the delay for the menu popups.
When you restart Firefox, you will see the menu load
noticeably quicker.
Disable IPv6
This little tweak improves Firefox's speed as it means
the browser does not have to translate between IPv4 and IPv6. Whilst
IPv6 is the next-generation Internet Protocol and the successor to
IPv4, it is not widely implemented. So, take advantage by turning off
IPv6.
Once again, open a new web browser
tab and load the page about:config.
In the address bar, type the following:
network.dns.disableIPv6
Double click on the entry. This will change the default
value of 'False' to 'True'.
Increase cache size
Firefox stores images and scripts in a local memory
cache. When images are loaded, they can be cached so they
don't need to be decoded or uncompressed to be redisplayed. The
preference browser.cache.memory.capacity controls the
maximum amount of memory to use for caching decoded images and chrome
(application user interface elements).
If you have plenty of RAM (in excess of 2GB), frequently
leave Firefox running all of the time and return to specific
sites on a regular basis, performance will be improved by increasing
the cache size.
- open a new tab
- type "about:config" and accept the warning
- right click in the window, select New > Integer
- type browser.cache.memory.capacity and click OK
- enter 32768 and click OK
Restart the web browser, and enjoy a faster browsing
experience.
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