There are many methods to optimize and speed up Firefox and one of them is by optimizing the SQLite databases used by Firefox. Firefox stores a lot of information in SQLite databases and overtime Firefox will slow down if the database gets too large. The problem with SQLite databases is when a data is deleted from the database, it is not really removed from the database file but instead it is marked as free for future use. The good thing about this is the database file will not increase when a new data can be saved into the “free” space. However it also poses a problem where the database gets fragmented and eventually slowing down the application when the database file size gets too large.
To think about it, this is actually quite similar to how our hard drive works. In Windows operating system, defragging the hard drive solves this problem but for SQLite database, you will need to use the SQLite VACUUM command. Fortunately compacting the SQLite database can be easily done using SpeedyFox which I have review 3 years ago when it was still in version 1. Today SpeedyFox has been updated to version 2.0 and it also supports optimizing Skype, Chrome, Thunderbird and Firefox.
Upon running, SpeedyFox 2.0 automatically detects and loads the default profile on the program. Click the optimize button and SpeedyFox will start to compact the SQLite databases. The progress window shows what databases are optimized and also how much space is saved. It is also possible to load custom profiles such as Firefox portable by clicking the SpeedyFox menubar and select “Add custom profile” or drag the profile folder and drop it to SpeedyFox.
If you use Firefox, Skype, Chrome or Thunderbird very often, you may need to frequently compact the databases. One easy way to do it is via command line which is supported in SpeedyFox 2.0. Click on the Command line button in SpeedyFox and click the Copy button to copy the parameter to clipboard. Finally, right click on Desktop or at any other location, select New > Shortcut, paste the SpeedyFox command line parameter to the box by pressing CTRL+V or right click > Paste, click Next and Finish button. Now whenever you run the shortcut which you’ve created, SpeedyFox will automatically optimizes the databases in background. However make sure that the application that you want to optimize is terminated first or else it will not work.
If you have SSD hard drive, you don’t need SpeedyFox 2.0 because it is fast enough to load and process large SQLite databases without any noticeable slow downs.
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