How to Make Firefox Load Faster
Firefox may run quickly but it loads slowly; here's how to fix it. (This tip is for experienced computer users only.)
You can slash Firefox's slow load time by compressing the DLLs and executables. There are many choices for compression but I suggest you use UPX which is free, efficient and time proven.
1. Download UPX from http://upx.sourceforge.net/#download
2. Unzip upx.exe into your Firefox installation folder which is normally C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.
3. Make sure Firefox is not running then shell to a command prompt in the Firefox installation directory.
4. Type in the following command in a single line and hit return:
for %v in (*.exe *.dll components\*.dll plugins\*.dll) do upx "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v"
5. If on some later occasion you want to unpack the files, just type in the command above but add the decompression switch "-d" after "do upx."
That's it; enjoy the difference!
Gizmo
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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
I recently started using Firefox3 and noticed it LOADS real slow. So I saw this and decided to try it. Definitely loads faster, maybe 2x (I should have timed it before & after).
XP Pro, 2.4 ghz
Amended
You can slash Firefox's slow load time by compressing the DLLs and executables. There are many choices for compression but I suggest you use UPX which is free, efficient and time proven.
1. Download UPX from http://upx.sourceforge.net/#download
2. Unzip upx.exe into your Firefox installation folder which is normally C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.
3. Make sure Firefox is not running then shell to a command prompt in the Firefox installation directory.
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Or for those of you that (do not know how to shell to a command prompt) download this file @ http://www.ktechcomputing.com/cmdopen/ which adds open command prompt to your "right click" mouse functions, and open the folder described above and proceed with step # 4
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4. Type in the following command in a single line and hit return:
for %v in (*.exe *.dll components\*.dll plugins\*.dll) do upx "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v"
5. If on some later occasion you want to unpack the files, just type in the command above but add the decompression switch "-d" after "do upx."
If you really want to speed up firefox page loading times in a BIG! way you will need to edit about:congig pipelining setting a very good blow by blow tutorial is at http://nettechguide.com/how-to-speed-up-firefox-page-loading-times/ alternatively you could get the plugin for firefox called fasterfox at mozdev http://fasterfox.mozdev.org
I think you will notice a huge difference in speed if you are using broadband.
Plz read the article properly, this is to make Firefox startup faster, not load web pages.
Erm, how DOES one "shell to a command prompt in the Firefox installation directory."?
"Erm, how DOES one "shell to a command prompt in the Firefox installation directory."?"
Well did you see at the top, "(This tip is for experienced computer users only.)"
So being an adventurer I figured that meant to open "Start-all programs- accessories- command prompt" which worked. But then you have to get into the Firefox directory. I barely remember how to use DOS... but I have never accepted "Folders" as the replacement to "Directories". Too bad I can't copy n paste that long command...
btw, questions like that are gonna get us half-experienced computer users kicked outta here...
For any other noobs out there, the answer is here-
http://www.ax-soft.com/Add-ons/15393.htm
Is there a tool you can use to determine how much disk activity there is while firefox loads (i.e. so you can see whether or not it is bottlenecking)?
oh is this real? i dun wan to have virus
2.1Ghz dual core, 2 gigs ram. doing this made firefox load a LOT slower....
Is there any alternatives to this? I have tried the Win32 console version, and the 32-bit DOS version, but both didn't work. They just opened for a second, and closed. I tried extracting it to the Firefox folder with the folder, and only the executable, but it just doesn't work. I also tried the Atari TOS/MiNT version, but I don't know to open it. I'm using Windows so I haven't bothered with the linux versions, and the source code is useless for me. Please reply. BTW does this really work for FF3?, considering how long ago this topic was posted...
"They just opened for a second, and closed." If you are referring to trying to download, I had the same problem in FF window. So I opened it in IE7 and it downloaded fine. I did need to move the upx.exe file from the subdirectory to the firefox directory... er folder to get it to run.
I've got a fairly fast computer, with a clean environment (not much stuff running).
I'm guestimating that I got about 3x to 4x performance improvment.
For those who don't understand why/how this is working: if you don't have enough memory or faster cpu as it is, you probably won't benefit much.
How the performance improvment out of this is expected is that the files are compressed on the hard drive, resulting in less data reading from the hard drive, but of course more CPU/memory to uncompress. The theory is that the hard drive would normally be so slow that it makes a big impact on reading (eg) 20 mb (normal) vs 10 mb (compressed).
For example, let's say it takes 10seconds to read 20mb and 5 seconds to read 10mb. Let's say it takes 2s for the PC to decompress 10mb. So in this case you the difference might be 5s + 2s (read, decompress) vs 10s (read).
So if your CPU is slow or overloaded and it takes 5s to uncompress, then you haven't gained anything.
Worse still, if your setup is REALLY bad, and it takes 10s to uncompress something it could've read in 5s anyway, then you've got a performance hit, and you're worse off than before.
is this available for firefox 3 full?
Get 3; these tweaks are for firefox 2
pack Microsoft office, and many other programs, works great esp the old programs, will try all of window dll's, very good tool
nice topic..
elechub.com
I tried it on an old 450Mhz XP laptop with 512mb. FFox definitely load faster, maybe 2x faster. It runs at the the same speed tho. - Ken
Make it LOAD faster. It doesn't make it WORK faster.
The difference is quite noticieable on old computers. Of course if you have the latest greatest 2Ghz+ monster the difference will be less than one second.
FC
I'm no techie either, so I think I'm missing something. This however will speed up Firefox after it finally does load, works good.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1299854/posts
re: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1299854/posts & http pipelining
I'm not trying to be negative or anything, but I read an article which explained that the reason that http pipelining was disabled by default was because of incompatibility with adobe flash, resulting in pages with flash videos not working properly. However, it is also reported that most of these issues seem to have been resolved as of Firefox 2.0.0.8, so maybe for post 2.0.0.8 users and us Firefox 3 beta users this will not be a problem.
Hm, can't understand why this would really make a difference, in fact it should cause problems, as more memory would be needed as you would have to decompress the UPXed files. There would also be problems with updates, as Firefox would have to download full updates instead of patch files, if indeed it could still update itself. Much more useful would to minimise the number of addons you install, as well as watching which ones you use, as some add-ons slow down firefox more than others. This how-to only really applies to USB flash drives, which have very poor access times.
If you don't mind sacrificing a little memory, a program such as firefox preloader would do the job nicely. It loaded just the core of firefox into memory, without actually starting firefox, which is exactly what Internet Explorer does. However, it has not been updated in a few years, and only worked with Firefox 1.5.x. It could be made to work with Firefox 2.x by disabling the session restore functionality. I haven't tested it to see if it works with Firefox 3, as I'm happy enough with it's slow launch speed as I leave it running all the time.
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