How to speed up Firefox on a Macbook
There’s been growing murmur for a couple years now and it’s all about how the world’s favorite open-source browser is slowing down people’s computers, especially ultraportables and netbooks. Call it malaise or whatever you like, but Firefox is noticeably less nimble than it used to be. Why and what can we do about it?
Mozilla has published a support document entitled Firefox consumes a lot of CPU resources (see also: Firefox CPU usage (mozillaZine KB), via News.com), which describes in detail the causes and potential remedies for this browser’s resource rapacious ways. In a nutshell, if your MacBook, MacBook Air or hackintoshed netbook’s fan kicks on every time you view media-rich Web pages in Firefox, now you know why.
Here are the Top 3 culprits and steps you can take:
• Flash: Yes, Adobe’s Flash is a pox on everything it touches! Try installing the latest version (download page) from the pox masters themselves or for granular control over which sites can and can’t display Flash degraded content Mozilla recommends the FlashBlock extension.
— See also: How to: Selectively enable Flash apps, animations in Safari
• Adobe Reader: Yes, Adobe’s Acrobat Reader (plugin) is a pox on everything it touches! Again, get the latest version of the Adobe Reader plugin from the poxmeisters. Alternately, this Mozilla support article describes how to configure Firefox so that .pdf files open outside the browser.
• JavaScript (JS): Performance of this scripting language has come a long, long way in recent years, though it still can cause problems from time to time. These issues are almost always site specific and modern browsers, including both Firefox and Safari, feature a built-in JS engine. Thereupon, aside from trying one browser or another, there’s NoScript extension that allows the user to specify which sites can and cannot run JavaScript.
Extended to death
Lastly, one of the great advantages of Firefox is the huge number of clever and highly useful add-ons and extensions. However, like all pieces of software (PoS), extensions and add-ons can be poorly written, out-of-date or just plain too cantankerous to play well with others.
A discrete example of add-ons not getting along is the marvelous Shareaholic, an all-in-one social networking tool and the various and sundry individual social networking add-ons, such as the StumbleUpon Toolbar or widgets/plugins that some busy beavers code into their webpages. The solution here is to avoid installing multiple tools that do the same thing and/or avoid websites created by people with too much time on their hands.
Thereupon, if all of your add-ons are up-to-date and you still suspect one or more are causing problems, try turning them on and off one at a time and/or in sets until you find the offending one (Tools -> Add-ons -> Disable).
Gotta handy dandy Firefox tip or tool you’re just dying to share? Leave us a note and link in the comments below…
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November 22nd, 2009
Hi Ronald,
This is one of very very few times someone has reported that Shareaholic may not be playing well with another add-on (and each time so far it has been another add-ons fault, not Shareaholic’s).
100% agree that one should be careful about which add-on’s one installs. We’re very proud that our users commend us on Shareaholic’s minimal effect on performance, and of our awards in this area as well.
Would appreciate if you could get back to me so that we can figure out what is going on. Shareaholic is certainly not designed to talk to other widgets or add-ons so there really shouldn’t be any conflicts or slow downs directly attributable to Shareaholic.
Many thanks!
November 24th, 2009
Good info, thanks for posting it.