What browser do you use?

You may not even know. Then it’s probably

• Google Chrome
• Apple Safari
• Microsoft Edge

Yet I’m not satisfied with the default browsers shipped by manufacturers and big tech.

I use Firefox ever since inception.

Yet even FF has some issues. Speed e.g.!

Yet most browsers, even Chrome are slow these days.

Why? We use them wrong!

So here is a no bullshit guide on how to speed up Firefox or any other browser for that matter.

Why is my browser slow and what to do about it?

Over the years I’ve tried numerous ways of speeding up Firefox.

I even tried most other browsers just to discover that they all become slow sooner or later. Why that?

We use them in ways they were not intended to originally.

Browsers did not even have tabs back in the days.

Now we have dozens of them open!

Most posts on speeding up browsers make you change some hidden preferences and such.

I say: that’s bullshit!

Why? I’ve never experienced much of an improvement after making some voodoo tweaks.

There are just a few reasons why your Firefox is sooo damn slow.

And you can tackle these issues easily. No hard core techie know-how needed!

I use Firefox ever since it has been called Phoenix in the 0. versions.

Back then the most important reasons to switch to FF were its

• light weight architecture
• low memory usage
• fast start-up
• speedy rendering of Web pages.

These days many people’s Firefox is more of a moloch.

It takes up huge resources and can slow down your whole system. It even freezes and crashes quite often etc.

Back then 20k RAM taken up by a browser was much. By now my FF uses like 8GB RAM and more frequently.

This slows down not only your browser but the whole system!

Nonetheless it’s still an indispensable tool!

And I won’t switch to a Google spyware called Chrome.

Sometimes I also use Opera — which is based on Chrome too.

Yet only for work as it has a free VPN I check Google results from the US.

Otherwise Google shows me results from Germany and in German as I live and work in Berlin.

Firefox also has a free VPN by now yet you have to sign up for a Mozilla account to use it.

Using default browsers like Apple’s Safari or Microsoft Edge is not my cup of tea.

Yet despite choosing Firefox my browsing experience on the Web becomes a drag over time.

What do about a slow browsing experience on Firefox etc.?

From time to time I clean up my Firefox when it’s almost unusable already.

Then it runs smoothly again.

Please forget all the bullshit about messing with hidden preferences!

This is simple advice here. It’s not only for geeks.

So how to speed up Firefox or any other browser?

Remove those useless crap extensions!

The sheer amount of extensions — or add-ons as they are called on Firefox — slows your browser.

I know, I used up to 50 of them in peak times.

Remove all of those that you don’t use daily or at least a few times a week.

Type “about:addons” (without quotes) in your browser address bar to open the Add-ons Manager.

There it says “Manage Your Extensions” and you see a list of them below.

Do you still have more than 20?

Then remove all those that don’t make money for you.

In other words remove extensions you don’t need for work.

Each extension is almost like standalone software. It uses lots of resources.

Some may be even broken and cause memory leaks.

Still not sure whether you’ll need them in future?

At least disable them!

Delete those stale downloads!

Why take your whole luggage with you all time when sight seeing?

Go to the “hamburger” menu on top right (showing three horizontal lines), click it, and select “Downloads”.

Then you see a complete list of downloads.

Pressing Ctrl+J on your keyboard will also lead you there!

You probably haven’t visited them after downloading once.

Remove downloads from the downloads list by clicking “clear downloads”.

Otherwise they load each time you start your browser.

If you’re scared to lose data just delete those you won’t need anymore by selecting them.

Ideally you do it after each download you’ll only need once.

The downloads stay in your download folder btw.

You just remove them on Firefox!

So your clothing is still in the cupboard. You just unpacked it!

Close those hundred tabs!

As noted above early browsers had just one “tab”.

Firefox was among the first browsers to introduce tabs.

Yet nowadays tabs are more of a nuisance than a boon.

Let’s be honest! You can’t use more than one tab at once.

You don’t need to keep all the others for later either.

Close them down once you leave.

A dozen of tabs should be the maximum. Otherwise you forget anyway what’s behind them.

Leave that bloated animated page!

Some people use the browser like a TV set!

It’s not just about Netflix or Amazon Prime though.

In general videos and animations use much more memory and CPU than any other website.

Moving images, even when you don’t watch them, slow down your engine.

Even running them in the background means heavy load.

This also applies to ad-heavy animated pages like Wired.

You don’t watch movies online?

What about videos or animations?

What about YouTube, Spotify showing animated scenes from music videos or simply Instagram with all its looping short vids?

All of these sites are heavy weights because of showing moving pictures.

Many websites also show animated ads. You ma want to install or switch on an adblocker to block them.

I use uBlock Origin on my Firefox.

They most probably cause your FF to slow down.

Also many Web apps are script-heavy and slow as well.

A tool like uBlock Origin also allows you to switch off media elements or scripts on any tab.

Restart that bastard!

Closing down tabs does not always mean they don’t drain your memory.

Ideally you restart your FF after closing those 100 tabs.

Otherwise you still carry some of their load.

Browsers usually maintain some of the processes even after the respective tabs are closed.

Speeding up your browser is simple, isn’t it?

You see, no hidden preferences voodoo needed.

Just apply some common sense to speed up your Firefox.

It should work for Chrome and other browsers as well.

Do you know some similar ways of speeding it up?

Tell me on social media like LinkedIn, Mastodon or Reddit.

I’m known as @onreact almost everywhere.

Ideally I’ll add them to the post and you get credited.