I’ve been using Firefox 3 since Release Candidate 1 (RC1) right up till the final stable version which was released a week ago. The BETA version was released much earlier but I did not test it because it is usually very unstable and used for testing purposes only. As for Release Candidate, it is the final stage before a full release. After installing Firefox RC1, it worked perfectly with no crashes and I noticed that websites loads faster than Firefox 2. The only problem was the incompatible extensions which doesn’t effect me much because I only use FlashGot.
Although the new Firefox 3 is able to load up website much faster than previous version of Firefox, there is still a way to speed up and optimize Firefox 3. I was skeptical at first, so I made a full backup of my Firefox profile, tuned Firefox 3 with a click and website loads EVEN FASTER!
If you type about:config at the Firefox URL bar, a bunch of advance settings will appear. It’s not easy knowing which one to change will improve Firefox’s performance but you can find them on lots of Firefox related websites. Instead of manually changing the settings one by one, here is a very useful free software that is able to optimize the latest Firefox 3 with just a click.
FireTune for Mozilla Firefox v1.x / 2.x / 3.x was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox. It is based on a collection of popular and well working optimization settings used and tested by the experts. Usually you have to optimize Firefox manually, which can be time consuming and difficult for the novice user. FireTune helps you here – it includes all the performance optimizations. The only thing you must do is: make your selection. FireTune does the work for you.
According to your specific computer speed and internet connection speed, FireTune will optimize several internal settings of Firefox for better performance. FireTune does NOT modify the Firefox executable, or any other Firefox binary file. Everything can be undone easily provided you saved your original profile configuration file with FireTune’s profile backup feature before. Details on what exactly FireTune does can be found in the FireTune help file.
The simple way to tell whether Firefox is faster after optimizing is to follow these instructions.
1. Clear the Cache of Firefox and close Firefox
2. Open Firefox, go to http://www.numion.com/stopwatch/ and do a speed test on http://www.neowin.net/. Note down the time taken to completely load the website.
3. Clear the cache and close Firefox.
Note: I’d advice you to go through step 1-3 a few times to get an average of load time before optimization.
4. Tune your Firefox with FireTune.
5. Start Firefox again, and repeat the speed test on http://www.neowin.net/
6. Compare the displayed result with the result from the test before the optimization
The developer of FireTune noticed a speed improvement of 2.05 seconds – the load time was 9.47 seconds before optimizations, and 7.42 seconds after optimization. I’ve tested it myself and also noticed a speed improvement of an average of 2-3 seconds. I visit many website and forums everyday and it could definitely save a lot of my time. Actually I’ve heard about FireTune long ago but never tested it. I am glad that I have now… If you are using the latest Firefox 3, I strongly recommend you to tweak, tune and optimize it with FireTune.