Firefox slow to load

[PrincessB]

Elderly downstairs desktop (highish spec, built 2013) is used as the equivalent of the piano from times past.

Rather than set up seperate log ins, I use Edge for banking, #1 Daughter uses Chrome and for day to day stuff, Firefox.

Firefox has gotten quite a bit slower recently, load time is about a second, followed by a four second delay before the Google search prompt appears (Google uk) is the default page.

Neither Chrome, nor Edge are this slow and will comfortably pop up the Google search from starting to load in a much more reasonable second or so.

I would suspect this has something to do with partner linking Firefox into Gmail, Facebook etc. The other two browsers are less tampered with.

Just wondering if there is much that can done to restore Firefox to its former performance level.

Regards,

B.

BTW.
Quad core Intel processor with hyperthreading (3.3 - 3.7)
16GB memory
1 TB SSD
2GB Nvidia graphics card (nothing special but very quiet)

[seagles]

Google search

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-firefox ... -run-fast/

Might be worth looking at this.

[SalvorHardin]

Neither Chrome, nor Edge are this slow and will comfortably pop up the Google search from starting to load in a much more reasonable second or so.

I would suspect this has something to do with partner linking Firefox into Gmail, Facebook etc. The other two browsers are less tampered with.

Just wondering if there is much that can done to restore Firefox to its former performance level.

You're right. Generally the more add-ons and/or themes that are enabled the longer it takes Firefox to load.

I run Firefox (67.0.4 - the latest version) with only two add-ons enabled (Adblock Plus and NoScript) and several others which are disabled that I enable when I want to use them. Firefox starts within a fraction of a second of clicking on the icon. But if I have also enabled the disabled addons (usually I've forgotten to disable them before closing Firefox) it takes several seconds to load. Here's Mozilla's help page for slow startup

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fi ... e-start-up.

[Nocton]

Have you cleared the cache recently? And clear some of the other stuff too.
Also run CCleaner https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/download when I expect you will clear huge amounts of temporary files

[PrincessB]

Have you cleared the cache recently? And clear some of the other stuff too.
Also run CCleaner https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/download when I expect you will clear huge amounts of temporary files

Done,

It found 4.5GB of unwanted stuff and did a big clear out of some more useful stuff (like my BBC player login)

Firefox launch time now down to under two seconds.

In the old days, I'd build a new machine every year. I didn't expect this one to last quite as long as it has.*

Cheers,

B.

* Erm Trigger's new broom. Replacement processor, replaced hard drive a few times, at least three different diplays, keyboards come and go as do speaker systems, but apart from that it's all vintage stuff from the heady days of 2013.

[Breelander]

...Also run CCleaner ... when I expect you will clear huge amounts of temporary files

Done,

It found 4.5GB of unwanted stuff and did a big clear out of some more useful stuff (like my BBC player login)...

For future reference, go to CCleaner > Options > Cookies. Here you can select all the cookies you wish to keep, like the login cookies for LemonFool, the BBC, your bank, etc.

[Lanark]

Have you cleared the cache recently?

^ This, I find just clearing the cache every few months is enough to keep Firefox running fast.