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This is just a community site where fellow users of Firefox help one another. On this site we do not discuss Firefox development or browser comparison.

If something is actually going wrong with your installs maybe it is the number of or combination of addons, but you say you have ruled that out. Firefox is reputably fast.

• https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/desktop/fast/

You may find one of the mailing lists where the subject is considered on topic. if you do find a specific mailing list thread feel free to post back here to cross link to it.

• http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#general-development

Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web link} While you are in safe mode; Press the <Alt> or <F10> key to bring up the tool bar. Followed by; Windows; Tools > Options Linux; Edit > Preferences Mac; application name > Preferences Then Advanced > General. Look for and turn off Use Hardware Acceleration.

Poke around safe web sites and see if there is still a problem. Then restart.

I would like to know some sort of benchmarking tool to compare Firefox performance with other browsers. Do you have that?

Firefox being slow can have all kind of reasons.

How much physical memory do you have installed and hw much is free when you use Firefox?

You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

• Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"

You need close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problem.

See "Creating a profile":

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Profile_issues

If the new profile works then you can transfer files from a previously used profile to the new profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over the problem

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

Boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test to see if that helps.

• http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-start-windows-in-safe-mode/

You didn't read carefully enough what I wrote. It's slow on computers ranging from a Pentium 4 to an i7, Windows 2000 - 7 and Mac, this means a broad range of computers within the last decade, which you should expect to have different RAM (2GB - 16GB if you must know). That has nothing to do with it unless I run out of RAM, which isn't caused just by Firefox being open.

My guess is you haven't used Chrome alongside Firefox the same way so can't notice the speed differences or are just not paying attention. I would use Firefox if it was as fast as Chrome (no reason it shouldn't be) and were less buggy. Questions about my computer or myself are pointless because it behaves the same way across all computers and with different people I've seen.

The problem is Firefox is not optimized and bloated. It needs to be cleaned up like Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari are, no ifs ands or buts about it.

My problem is Firefox will run reasonably fast - for a while, I do have quite a few tabs open, They start out in background mode, but as soon as I access them (to view or download from them) even if I close them as I go, FF will start to slow down and it isnt long before FF drops to a crawl sometimes taking MINUTES to answer a click on the file menu (example) no fancy benchmarks needed.

Having to restart FF and hoping your tabs come back for a temp. speedboost is NOT acceptable

I have 6 gigs ram, XP 32 only uses about 3.5 of it, 2.33ghz core duo, plenty of drive space.

Nighthawk

Please go to the top of any Mozilla.org web page and use the Ask A Question link; https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new This will let us look at your system details. No Personal Information Is Collected.

I just figured out how to speed up my Firefox to a faster speed than Chrome and iexplorer after months of frustratingly buggy and slow browsing. Please like this answer if this helps you too, this is my first entry.

Exact Problems That I Experienced

For months:

• Overall laggy and slow response of Firefox (startup, browsing, navigating tabs etc.)
• Youtube videos loaded extremely slow with lots of interruptions even at lowest resolution.

Since last week:

• Pop-ups that asked me to 'update Firefox' and redirected me to other websites with 'security' software.

Things that Worked to bring Firefox to Speed

1.) Removed this adware from my PC:

• facemoods
• Search Protect
• Pastaleads (aka PastaQuotes)

This adware was quite obnoxious to remove. I removed it first by Start -> Control Panel -> Uninstall a Program. But it was still there. So I downloaded Malwarebytes Anti-Malware[note] (do not download from shady sites!) and scanned the computer. I had to do this in admin mode, it found much more files. After quarantining the files, I went to history, checked all the boxes of the files manually and deleted them all. Malwarebytes didn't remove these files properly if the checkboxes weren't selected. Then I restarted the computer and ran the Malwarebytes scan again to make sure I had zero hits.

[note] This will also work with other anti-malware software. Go to alternativeto to look for alternatives to Malwarebytes. DO NOT download any other 'help programs' not listed there. Let me know if another software works well and I will mention it here.

2.) After removing this adware, I had to reset the internet proxy settings manually because the adware forced the browsers (all browsers of my PC actually) to use a proxy. Do the following:

a.Click Start. b.Click Run and type cmd.exe (as admin). c.Type the following command and press ENTER for each line (i.e. twice). netsh winsock reset netsh winhttp reset proxy

Then I opened Firefox and manually set the proxy back to autoselect by clicking Menu -> Options -> Advanced -> Network -> Settings... -> and then enabled no proxy or auto-detect proxy settings for this network. I did the analogous thing for internet explorer etc.

Step 1.) and 2.) at least doubled the speed of my browser (went from ~2 Mbps to ~16 Mbps according to speedtest!), removed all the pop-ups, laggy browser behavior, and Youtube-videos are now running now in HD without interruptions (I always thought my internet connection is bad...).

3.) Finally, I installed Waterfox, i.e. the 64-bit version of Firefox, and entered my email and password to sync it with my Firefox add-ons and bookmarks. I also installed the 64-bit version of the adobe flash player plugin. I deactivated most of my add-ons except adblock, ghostery, gtranslate and Web of Trust.

This speeded up my browser another ~30%. Now it is similar fast/faster than Chrome and iexplorer :D!

These Things did Not Work or Improvement was Minimal:

• Resetting the browser.
• Deinstall & reinstall Firefox.
• Update Firefox.
• Install and scan with antivirus software.
• Make a new user profile (awfully timeconsuming and zero impact).
• Messing around in the about:config section (Pipelineing etc.).
• Installing shady 'help' software that promises to speed up the browser or remove adware.
• Tampering with the hardware acceleration.

Curious to see how many other users had the same problem. I just wish I had found this out earlier.