Firefox is the third most popular browser in the world. Users love it for its simple interface, high speed and extensibility. For him, almost 200 thousand various add-ons have been released, allowing to increase functionality. However, not everyone knows about the presence of an editor in it, which allows you to configure parameters that are not presented in the standard settings. In this article, we will talk about how to speed up Firefox using its hidden features.
About: config
The address system, starting with about: and based on the URI specification, is used in different browsers to display version information, functions and settings that are not included in the graphical user interface. The address about: blank is widely known. Specifying it in the settings as the initial one leads to the fact that when you start the browser will always display a clean web page.
Mozilla supports the use of about thirty pages with the about: identifier. The Firefox browser configuration editor is called using the about: config internal address. It is entered, like any other URI, in the combined address bar. The first thing you see after entering it will be a warning about the consequences of the changes. By agreeing, you will click the button "I accept the risk!".
The next window contains several hundred settings that are responsible for all aspects of the browser, including how to speed up Mozilla Firefox. All parameters given in this section are divided into three groups:
- logical (boolean);
- numeric (integer);
- string (string).
Double-clicking on the selected configuration line opens the editing form for numeric and string values or changes the logical ones to the opposite. Below we consider specific examples that can improve the interaction of the "fire fox" with the hardware of the computer and work with network protocols for transmitting information.
Work with memory
New pages in the process of surfing the Internet can open both in a new window or tab, and in the current one. The browser remembers the last page transitions and caches them in memory. In other words, “impressions” of visited web pages are created in the computer’s RAM, which are loaded back when the “Back” button is pressed. Thus, the ability to quickly navigate.
Let's see how to speed up Firefox by changing the settings for working with the computer’s RAM. The history settings of the current Internet session are regulated by two numerical parameters in the browser.sessionhistory block:
- Max_total_viewers is responsible for storing previously visited pages in the cache. If you have broadband Internet access from the default “-1”, you can change it to “0”. The page will not be saved in RAM, but thanks to the quick connection, when you click the "Back" button, it will open almost immediately.
- Max_entries stores sequentially visited sites in RAM. By default saves 50 pages. It is enough to reduce it to 5. In this case, five consecutively executed transitions by internal links of the site will be stored in memory.
Work with disk
The presence of a fast solid-state drive in the computer allows you to redefine the place where the cache will be saved. Thus, we speed up Firefox, while taking off the load from RAM when the browser window is inactive. The speed of the SSD compensates for the time delay when retrieving open pages from the virtual memory of the hard drive. This parameter will require the creation of a new boolean variable config.trim_on_minimize . Two values for this parameter are valid:
- True In this case, when the browser is minimized, the data is transferred from the RAM to the hard disk in the virtual memory sector.
- False All data is stored in RAM.
The following setting allows you to significantly reduce the amount of data that the browser constantly writes to the hard drive in case of a sudden shutdown. The parameter is called
browser.sessionstore.interval , and by default its value is 15 seconds. After this time interval has elapsed, the current session data is saved and the contents of the recovery file are overwritten. The amount of recorded information depends on the saturation of the site with "heavy" design elements and can reach tens of gigabytes per day.
This parameter is numerical and is indicated in milliseconds. It can be increased up to 30 minutes, which in the accepted units of measurement will amount to 1800000. As a result, we speed up Firefox by reducing the flow of data that it constantly exchanges with the hard drive.
Network protocols
The above methods relate to interaction with the hardware of the computer. Let's see how to speed up the Mozilla Firefox browser by changing some of the networking options. The logical configuration of network.prefetch-next is responsible for preloading the site, most likely for the user to click on the link from the page being viewed.
Firefox automatically loads the predicted transition data into the cache, thereby causing unnecessary traffic consumption. This function is disabled by replacing the default value of True with False. Thus, you will reduce the current network load, while the page display speed with a fast connection will practically not change.
Tab animation
The animation of the tab bar when opening or closing new elements looks beautiful, but does not carry any payload. The boolean parameter browser.tabs.animate is responsible for turning this visual effect on and off. By default, each new tab causes a “slide” effect on the panel containing them.
Switching a value from True to False accelerates Firefox by instantly displaying new tabs. After application, the setting works immediately, without requiring a restart of the browser. Even several open tabs will allow you to evaluate the effect of changing this parameter, and with a sufficiently large number of them it will become even more noticeable.
Gif animation
When surfing from useful content, it may distract the presence of gif animations on the page. Constantly playing looped clips attracts attention. We speed up Firefox by changing the rules for the behavior of gifs on visited sites. The string parameter image.animation_mode is responsible for their display mode .
The setting has three fixed values:
- normal - set by default and corresponds to the constant playback of the animation;
- once - an animated picture is shown in motion only once;
- none - completely disable the effect, the GIF looks like a static photo.
Changes occur instantly, without restarting the browser.
Page scrolling
Speeding up Firefox by changing the scroll option for web pages. Compared to other browsers, scrolling the “fire fox” looks rather slow. The mousewheel.min_line_scroll_amount setting is responsible for its speed. This numerical parameter defaults to 5. By increasing it, you can adjust the number of lines scrolled when moving the mouse wheel.
Changing this setting does not require a restart of the browser, and you can choose a convenient value quickly enough. As a result, you will adjust the speed of scrolling pages to your requirements and make their viewing more convenient.
Final recommendations
In this article, we talked about how to speed up the Firefox browser using the configuration settings. You should not apply all the recommendations in a row and hope that this will be an ideal option. First you need to determine what exactly is the limiting factor on your computer, and only then adjust the necessary parameters. In this case, by making minimal changes, you can achieve maximum performance gains.