Comments on: Workaround for Firefox 3.5 slow startups on Windows

By: Netizen

Netizen — Fri, 13 May 2011 11:09:04 +0000

Looks like a bullshit.

1. With a “factory-set” (both sets are enabled) Prefetch the Prefetch Cache populates with a FF prefetch data w/o any commandline switch.
2. AFAIK the “/prefetch” switch used *only* with an additional “:” (or “=”, I don’t remember) ending like “app.exe /prefetch:2″ and useful only when a some app loads (and don’t mixes) a mostly different set of DLLs for a different tasks (compare a reg commandlines of a wmplayer.exe for audio- and dvd- content)

By: Netizen

Netizen — Fri, 13 May 2011 10:53:51 +0000

BTW to speed up a Win (XP at least) builtin “Disc Cleanup” just remove an entire key
[
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Compress old files
]
which forces them to evaluate on start this stupid “Old Files Compression”

By: HeadNut

HeadNut — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:42:43 +0000

I should have said that there is a space after the parenthesis mark (“) then add /PREFETCH .. It works better in Capitals because the program thinks you are yelling at it (A programer thing)

By: HeadNut

HeadNut — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:35:15 +0000

Firefox does start slow , just fine tune like a car ,add /PREFETCH to th e reg. key and see the diffrence,, (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\firefox.exe\shell\open\command
Default, REG_SZ “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” %1″ /PREFETCH).. now it loads in approx. 0.5 sec.

OS Name: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Version: 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
This also works on Adobe Acrobat loads in approx. 0.7sec..

I hope this helps someone….

By: George Vancouver

George Vancouver — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:10:13 +0000

This “work around” did not work for me. Besides, In our production environment there is little time to experiement with “work arounds”.

Until Mozilla fixes this problem, I am going back to IE8. It seems to work fine without “work arounds”.

Notify me when the problem is fixed.

By: LukVdH

LukVdH — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 22:27:06 +0000

We are april 2010 now, and Firefox is at version 3.6.3.

It became even slower. Not only startup-time, but normal use too.

It’s useless this way.

Did Microsoft buy Firefox?

IE is better now, a lot (and I tought I would never say this).

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:37:46 +0000

Hi Kelly,

I saved it as c:\firefox.vbs and then put a shortcut on my desktop that linked to it. Then, when I double clicked on the shortcut, the script file runs, deletes the temp files and then starts Firefox. You could accomplish the same thing by saving the firefox.vbs file to your desktop, but setting up a shortcut allowed me to change the icon so it looked the same as the firefox icon.

Since this post, I upgraded to Windows 7 and switched to Chrome. I haven’t tried Firefox yet. Hopefully the new version doesn’t have this issue.

Good luck!

By: kelly

kelly — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 05:46:08 +0000

Hello Josh! Thanks for the script…but where do I save the script to – which folder on my pc? How do I activate it? Do I need to reboot?

By: The Rookie Blogger

The Rookie Blogger — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:27:23 +0000

I don’t want to clean the history of my computer… I need them for future use…

By: Name required

Name required — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:47:28 +0000

Not supported by some giant corporation? Judging by the way they bend over to lick google’s rearend and violate your priacy in the meantime, I’m not so sure about that.

By: Name required

Name required — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:43:08 +0000

Actually it is down to the developers to do testing. Relying on users to do your testing for you is just plain laziness.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:14:55 +0000

Tried it using IE8 yet? Love it also.

By: flashrob

flashrob — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:27:52 +0000

I have 3 computers running:

xp biz desktop 3gb mem… runs almost instant startup on firefox

vista laptop 3gb mem… runs almost instant startup on fire fox

xp desktop (only 1gb mem)… others browsers (safari, opera, start up in about 10 seconds… ie7 about 30seconds…

now: I understand the limited mem of this machine would mean slower starts overall then the other two that have 3gb mem… but Firefox USED to start up quickly… I did the suggested fixes… mostly deleting ie7′s “history and temp files” and that IMPROVED THINGS… but just marginally…THEN I FOUND THE SOLUTION (at least for me)…

and it is: THE AVG ANTIVIRUS “ADD-ON” …I disabled that in the add-ons…and now Firefox starts up in about 5 seconds… before this step it took minutes… (also, I was already using FasterFoxLite… which I had tried with little noticeable improvement… basically I disable MOST ADD-ONS…except java stuff, Fireshot (for quick screen or webpage cys), StumbleUpon… in other words on only keep ENABLED in the ADD-ONs…stuff I USE A LOT.

on my 3gb mem machines…this doesn’t matter…but check if you have an antivirus like AVG running as an addon— I have the free version…very good…but in this situation… all but prevents me using Firefox…

Safari, and Opera… are very good too…almost as quick and similar in mem usage to Firefox… but I like StumbleUpon and Fireshot too much, so I do want to mainly use Firefox…AND NOW IT’S ALMOST INSTANT STARTUP!

hope this helps many,

regards,

flashrob (website: dimestop.com if your interested)

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:02:54 +0000

I am using McAfee. So not sure if that could be the root cause of your problem.

By: Professor Lamoreaux

Professor Lamoreaux — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:12:57 +0000

appears the problem is due to a conflict with my old version of symantec antivirus.

ran system mechanic, unistalled symantec products, now FF 3.5 works like a charm.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:26:14 +0000

FF has to strip down to the older versions. It has become too heavy of an application, not something you need in a browser.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:24:44 +0000

I am using IE8. Much better now.

By: Professor Lamoreaux

Professor Lamoreaux — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:12:14 +0000

Well, Firefox was a nice program but it has been destroyed. The slow startup is unacceptable. There was a chance for this program to become the dominant browser. I wonder if a spy from microsoft or google has infiltrated the firefox team and is sabotaging the product?

please, back to basics.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:15:52 +0000

Did you report it Oliver? After all, the betas and release candidates are open to all to test.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:40:53 +0000

I’ve gone back to IE8. Every time I have to load FF either manually or through a link, it is a minimum of 30 seconds to load on my Windows 7 machine. It is now completely unusable for this reason.

By: john

john — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 04:34:49 +0000

Unfortunately firefox is simply not ready for worldwide domination. It still behaves like a concept car, nice to look at, but doesn’t really work that well. I have been using it on 10 different machines for 13 months and it is a piece of promising software but that’s all. I just rang a company becuase I could navigate to some pages- guess what? It was firefox’s fault as it worked beautifully on IE6/7/8 and opera! Seriously, all I want is the speed of IE6 without all the security issues- is that too much to ask? IE7 and IE8 are way to slow and too bloated. Opera is just a funny little cute browser but not practical enough and has issues with touchpad scrolling across all my machines- enough to ditch it too.

By: Anon Emouse

Anon Emouse — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:06:51 +0000

Quote: “Download and install the latest version of MF (currently 3.5.6)”
Riiiight. Do your weekly firefox uninstall/download/reinstall/uninstall/reinstall/ repeat. What ever happened to code it right the first time and TEST before releasing to the public. How can you people tolerate quick and dirty software releases.

By: Ibo

Ibo — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:31:11 +0000

Hi all,
I have tried all the above suggestion to no avail. After hours of struggling I noticed that I had two Mozilla Firefox installed in my machine: One on C: and other on D:.
So here is what I have done to solve the annoying slowness:
1- Uninstall any MF from Control pannel
2- Search for any word like *mozill*.* in your machine and remove it (some mozilla files can’t be removed from some plugins folder but It’s ok)
3- Download and install the latest version of MF (currently 3.5.6)
4- Make sure to install it under C:\Program Files

Now my MF is extremely fast and I even set it as my default browser.

Cheers,

By: Edfud

Edfud — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:13:06 +0000

The thing I don’t get is this… if FF is looking at these temporary files to get randomness and the recommended slowness fix involves deleting the temporary files, aren’t we wiping out the method that FF is using to get it’s randomness? I mean, if the only way to get something working is to prevent it from working, surely something is very wrong with the concept in the first place.

By: Cantello

Cantello — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:01:01 +0000

Thanks, deleting the temp files helped when FF started loading extremely slow.