9 Ways How You Can Speed Up Firefox

Browsers can suddenly slow down for a lot of reasons. If you love to multitask, having lots of tabs open can be heavy on the browser. Or, if you love customization and have multiple extensions and various themes, they can also make the browser slow. If the webpages you have opened have a lot of content and media, it can also take your browser some time to load.

Besides that, other settings, apps, or data can also lead to the same problem. Nevertheless, it all comes down to what items are taking up how much memory in your browser. So, making your browser much faster also includes reducing the memory usage and adjusting several settings.

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How You Can Speed Up Firefox?

Thankfully, there are many techniques you can apply to make your Firefox browser run much faster.

Close Unnecessary Tabs

If you have too many tabs open on your Firefox, it will naturally make the browser slow due to the number of resources they take. The browser will need to process a lot of information, which makes it run slower.

So, a quick and easy way to speed it up is by simply closing all the unnecessary tabs. On the other hand, you can also take help from extra extensions that specialize in managing your tabs.

Clear Cache and Browsing History

Cache data helps to load any webpages quickly. However, accumulated cache data can slow down the browser. Same is the case with your browsing history because all the information can be heavy on the browser. So, it’s good to regularly clean such data from your browser.

Here’s how you can clear browsing history and cache data on your Firefox browser. These steps will also remove cookies.

Go to Settings.
Click on Privacy and Security.
Go to the Cookies and Site Data section, click on the Clear Data.
Click on the Clear option.
Now, click on Clear Now.
Go to History and click on Clear History.
Change the time range to Everything and click on OK.

Disable or Remove Add-ons

You can also try removing the add-ons or extensions that you may have on your browser. Later, you can always quickly reinstall them anytime.

Click on the Application Menu button.
Go to Add-ons and themes.
Click on Extensions.
Select the extension you want to disable and toggle off the button.
To delete an extension, click on three dots beside it.
Then, click on Remove.
Again, click Remove on the pop-up.

Manage Browser Memory

Normally, if you have several extensions and themes, they tend to be more responsible for it. But it’s still tricky to pinpoint what exactly is taking up a significant resource in your browser. So, there’s a way you can easily check your browser’s memory and CPU usage in the Memory page.

In this page, you can have a detailed view on your browser’s memory. You can also save the data. Additionally, you can also tweak how much RAM you want Firefox to use. This way, your browser will run more smoothly:

Go to Firefox’s address and type in about:memory.
Navigate to the Free Memory section and click on Minimize memory usage.

Use Firefox in Safe Mode

If you’re in a hurry, a quick fix to make Firefox fast is by using it on Safe Mode. Doing so will run the browser by temporarily disabling any add-ons or themes. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

Go to Firefox’s application menu and click on Help.
Click on Troubleshoot Mode.
Firefox will display a prompt asking your permission to restart Firefox. Click on Restart.
Select Open from the pop-up box.

Turn On Hardware Acceleration

Sometimes, your PC can also lack memory to run apps and browsers. In such cases, you can turn on Hardware Acceleration. This setting will make your PC use some memory from the GPU so that there isn’t a lots of load on the CPU. Here’s how you can do just that:

Type about:preferences in the browser’s address bar.
In the General section, go to Performance.
Uncheck the box which says Use recommended performance settings.
Now, tick the box that says Use hardware acceleration when available.

Refresh Firefox

Another simple way to make Firefox run faster is by refreshing it. But instead of refreshing the webpage, you can select the Refresh Firefox option itself. This setting will delete your current add-ons and your altered settings will also be changed back to defaults. Here are its easy steps:

In the address bar of your browser, type about:support.
Then, click on Refresh Firefox.
Again, click on Refresh Firefox, in the pop-up.

Use Private Browsing Mode

If you don’t want to remove your history or other data, you can also use the Private Browsing mode. Using this mode, your browser won’t save any history and you may have a faster browsing experience. Here’s how you can do it:

Click on Firefox’s address bar and enter about:preferences#privacy.
Goto Cookies and Site Data.
Check the box that says Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed.
Then, scroll down to History.
Select Never remember history from the dropdown menu.
Click on Restart Firefox now when prompted.

Update Firefox to the Latest Version

If it’s been a while since you last updated your Firefox browser, that can also be a reason why it’s slow. This is because outdated browsers are more prone to minor bugs and glitches. Since every new update includes significant bug fixes and other improvements, we recommend updating your Firefox. Doing so can improve the browser’s overall performance.