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Firefox Extremely Slow Loading of Pages that Load Quickly in Chrome

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This has been happening to me with recent updates of Firefox, and I am very close to dumping a browser that I have used for years because of it. I go to load pages and it just sits there and spins and spins. In the time I take to open another browser like Chrome and copy and paste the exact same links into Chrome, where the download of the web page is practically instant. I go back to Firefox and it is still spinning and it is just ridiculous. I have no clue what would be causing this. After it finally loads a page, it seems fine on subsequent loads of pages.

This has been happening to me with recent updates of Firefox, and I am very close to dumping a browser that I have used for years because of it. I go to load pages and it just sits there and spins and spins. In the time I take to open another browser like Chrome and copy and paste the exact same links into Chrome, where the download of the web page is practically instant. I go back to Firefox and it is still spinning and it is just ridiculous. I have no clue what would be causing this. After it finally loads a page, it seems fine on subsequent loads of pages.

Chosen solution

A refresh doesn't keep/recover all personal data (only a small subset), so you may want to keep the profile saved to the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop for a while.

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All Replies (19)

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Try changing DNS over HTTPS (DoH) to "Off" or "Max Protection" and in Connection Settings change "Use system proxy settings" to "No proxy".

Does it still happen in Troubleshoot Mode?

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Tried this before I wrote. Time to check extensions...

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Troubleshoot Mode disables extensions which should rule them out.

Does it still happen in a new profile? An easy way to test a new profile is to install Developer Edition and see if it happens there or refresh your existing profile. Make sure you stay signed out of your sync account when testing.

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Looks like it may be an extension. Right now I only have half of the ones that were installed active and the connection is ok. I will keep my eye on it to see if the problem comes back.

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How many extensions do you have installed on Firefox when you face the issue of slowness?

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11 installed now as it works; 12 are now disabled.

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Still has problems. About ready to just switch browsers permanently. I changed nothing except downloaded updated versions.

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Extensions update automatically which can introduce issues.

Does it still happen in a new profile? An easy way to test a new profile is to install Developer Edition and see if it happens there or refresh your existing profile. Make sure you stay signed out of your sync account when testing.

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I did a refresh and after setting everything up the way it was, it seems fine now. Hopefully it will stay this way. Thanks for the refresh insight... And I assume after I am happy with the refresh, the added old profile folder can be deleted??????

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Seçilmiş Həll

A refresh doesn't keep/recover all personal data (only a small subset), so you may want to keep the profile saved to the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop for a while.

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Still not working right. In the time it took me to load a page to make a purchase at Dr. Schulze (herbdoc.com), I opened Opera, went to the web site, picked items to order, searched how to turn off Ad Blocker in Opera so Rakuten would work (downloaded and installed two extensions), went back to my order, searched for coupon codes, and placed the order. Firefox was STILL loading the Dr. Schulze page. Totally ridiculous.

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You can check the Web Console (Tools -> Web Developer) for messages about blocked content and about the presence of mixed or unsafe content.

You can check the Network Monitor to see if content is blocked or otherwise fails to load.

If necessary use "Ctrl+F5" or "Ctrl+Shift+R" (Mac: Command+Shift+R) to reload the page and bypass the cache to generate a fresh log.

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Did you change anything since you refreshed and it was working fine, like signing in to sync or installing extensions?

Do you have any third-party antivirus or security software? Kaspersky can cause performance issues if you have "Inject script into web traffic to interact with web pages" enabled and don't have the companion browser extension installed.

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Nothing changed. I have rebooted and found that it works fine. I even disabled Captive Portal Detection and Hardware acceleration yesterday and it was running on fire. Shut down and reboot this morning and back to the same shit. Personally, I think Windows 11 messes with everything. Haven't had trouble like this until I started using Windows 11. Seems like one thing after another.

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You can record a performance profile with *profiler.firefox.com* when the problem occurs, then share the link here.

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pmruzicka said

Nothing changed. I have rebooted and found that it works fine. I even disabled Captive Portal Detection and Hardware acceleration yesterday and it was running on fire. Shut down and reboot this morning and back to the same shit. Personally, I think Windows 11 messes with everything. Haven't had trouble like this until I started using Windows 11. Seems like one thing after another.

What are the hardware specs and HDD/SDD specs that you are using? Did you update to Windows 11 recently or did it come per-installed?

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Updated to Windows 11 last summer. What hardware/HDD/SDD specs are you looking for? Yesterday, I updated Windows and ran SFC (nothing) and DISM - presently working better, but have yet to reboot.

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As an FYI - whatever was going on had to do with Windows 11. Whole thing crashed. Tied making a new profile and it was still acting up. At this point, I have reinstalled Windows 11. Since last night, all seems to be wrking, but, quite honestly, with Windows 11, I will not be holding my breath. It has been nothing but issues since I went from Win 10 to Win 11. Worst OS they ever released.