Problem: You cannot imagine life without Firefox but over time, your favorite browser keeps getting slower and slower.
Not only is it slow, Firefox sometimes hangs for no reason, consumes a large amount of memory and CPU usage can climb to 90% or more when you have multiple tabs open simultaneously.
You have uninstalled most of the extensions and toolbars, deleted all the cookies and internet temporary files, cleared up the file download queue and disabled the background check for software updates - but none of this has helped you speed-up Firefox.
Solution: This is a common problem especially if you have been running Firefox for some time - I don't know why Firefox slows down but here's a small trick to rejuvenate the aged copy of Firefox without doing a fresh install.
Step 1: Start Firefox and export your bookmarks as a file on your hard-drive (we'll need them later).
Step 2: Type firefox.exe - P in the Run box of Windows. (see screenshot)
Step 3: Click the Create Profile button without making any modifications to your existing profile (which is normally called "default")
Now when you Start Firefox in the new profile, you are very likely to be impressed with the speed. You can import the bookmarks that you saved in Step 1. If you have made any changes to the Firefox Dictionary, copy the persdict.dat word list file from the old profile folder to the new one.
Yes, there won't be any old Firefox add-ons in the new profile but the browser will be extremely quick and won't hog the CPU - just the way you want Firefox to run on your computer.
And if you ever need to revert to the old profile, just type Firefox -P again and click the old profile. Nothing is lost.
Some more Firefox Tips and Tricks:
» Tweaks for Firefox Search Bar
» Firefox Extensions That You Thought Were Safe
» Fixes for Firefox Memory Problems
This article is written by Amit Agarwal, a professional blogger and technology columnist. You can subscribe to Digital Inspiration feeds here
.Find this article at: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/09/firefox-runs-slow-speed-memory-fast.html
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Thanks Amit,
I follow your tip, but creating a new profile also means that we need to reinstall all plugins. I did not see my favourite Gmail Manager plugin. Do you know how to backup plugins?
Written on 29/9/07 10:49 PM
Live bookmarks can be a CPU hog also. I has too many and my CPU% was almost always pegged. I removed the majority of them and things went back to normal.
Written on 29/9/07 11:43 PM
Sounds great, but just tried to do this with my machine, running Vista and when I enter the prompt in the Run window, it simply opens launches a firefox window. Do I need to do something different if I'm running Vista?
Cheers,
Gus
Written on 30/9/07 8:06 AM
and how could this be done on Mac OS X, where FF has similar issues?
Written on 30/9/07 8:44 AM
Firefox was indeed misbehaving. On following your steps, I notice that after typing the suggested on the 'run' box all I get is "....unable to locate the folder" although while checking in C drive found the mozilla installation. Sorry if I sound daft.. but I do need to follow this tip.
Written on 30/9/07 10:10 AM
You can run Firefox in safe-mode on the Mac via:
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -safe-mode
Written on 30/9/07 10:31 AM
@naqalone - yes, the existing plugins won't be available in the new profile but you can also revert to the old configuration by type Firefox -P again in the Run box.
@rickdog - good suggestion, live bookmarks can be a memory hog.
@anon - try putting things in quote.
@kaveeta - it looks like Firefox is installed in a different folder on your system. Try typing Firefox.exe -P in the box (no path)
Written on 30/9/07 12:00 PM
did that.. clicked on Ok and it opened up the Mozilla start page or the usual home page. I have used the 'search' option and looked up all the folders including hidden but this file does not show up.
Written on 30/9/07 1:30 PM
Is there a similar fix for Opera as well?
Written on 30/9/07 4:58 PM
I tried this tip, but didn't found much changes in Firefox.
Written on 1/10/07 12:32 AM
But without any Extensions, FF will just be a skeleton.
Written on 1/10/07 3:25 AM
wow! i'm suprised. removing all addons i need for work is that a good idea! ff is that fast now, but for what? any other tuning ideas?
Written on 1/10/07 12:56 PM
Make sure all firefox browsers are closed prior to opening the RUN command :)
Written on 1/10/07 1:19 PM
Thanks for the hint! :-D
Written on 1/10/07 4:25 PM
Great tip! Works great (so far)...Thanks
Written on 1/10/07 7:09 PM
Nice, but I love my extensions and it's settings..
I would like to see a tip to refresh my firefox without reinstalling anything.
Written on 2/10/07 9:39 PM
Isn't that expected!
Firefox without any plugins and addons installed would run faster.
Could you tell in more detail why FF would be slower with default profile?
Written on 3/10/07 5:42 PM
use FEBE (another firefox extension) to take backup of your extensions and then restore it in new profile. You can also use the backup to synchronize firefox across all your machines (home and office)
Written on 3/10/07 7:29 PM
Great tip, Amit. Worked a treat for me.
Written on 6/10/07 4:39 AM
Thanks for this amit, Firefox has been lagging and freezing regularly recently even after removing newer and less used extensions.
Now I just have to remember how I created my profile in a different directory to the default documents and settings one.
Written on 14/10/07 3:56 AM
Instead of doing this, I went to the tools menu, clear private data. I checked everything, and it solved the problem of Firefox operating sloooow. Fixed the cpu% and everything.
Written on 22/10/07 4:02 PM