Firefox slowing right down on OS X

silvine

Hi,

I've been using Firefox on my Mac. It runs fine but lately it takes ages to load upon startup. Also certain videos seem to stutter (I've a 10mb connection). I've the following add-ons installed:

Web of Trust
Greasemonkey
Autocopy
Autofill
Autopager
Delicious
Download status bar
Drag and upload
FirefM
Fasterfirefox
Google Desktop search
Private Browsing
Refractor
Undo Closed Tabs
URL Fixer
Prism

I am using an iMac Dual core with 3GB of RAM so it should be able to handle these? Any idea which apps slow Firefox down?

On a side note which apps are good for Safari? And is it faster than Camino?

Sad Professor

That's a lot of add-ons. I reckon they're all contributing to the slow down. The question isn't can the Mac handle them, it's can Firefox handle them? Some of them probably aren't behaving themselves or are conflicting with each other. Firefox is bloated enough as it is.

On a side note which apps are good for Safari?

You mean add-ons? There aren't many. Saft and Pithhelmet are the ones I use and I find them both essential.

K.O.Kiki

I've noticed this too.
Seeing as Webkit sucks a bit (understandable for a beta product), Safari isn't all that, and FF stutters a lot... time to migrate to... Opera :rolleyes:

hideous ape

I second the too many add-ons view. Most browsers just get into trouble the better you configure them with add-ons, plug-ins, etc. Firefox definitely hits a wall after you have been using it heavily for a few months.

Nowadays its a doddle to backup your data so I actually do a fresh OS install as soon as I notice a number of different apps getting a bit sluggish.

If the system is over 6 or 8 months old then maybe a fresh install will give it a kick.

Sad Professor

hideous ape wrote: »

Nowadays its a doddle to backup your data so I actually do a fresh OS install as soon as I notice a number of different apps getting a bit sluggish.

If the system is over 6 or 8 months old then maybe a fresh install will give it a kick.

I would disagree with this. While it is probably the norm on Windows, OS X doesn't really require a regular fresh install imo. Not unless something major is wrong.

ethernet

If you're restoring tabs (your session) on start-up, quit normally every now and gain (as opposed to saving and quitting). Speeds up loading times considerably.

silvine

I'm going to use Safari for a while and see how I get on. I'll miss some of the extensions but it is a lot faster!

huggs2

Addons can be disabled on startup of firefox by holding down alt(option key).

kevteljeur

Another trick is to create a second account in Firefox, and set it to ask on start-up which account to use. I use it for development, in case I suspect that an extension/add-on is causing a problem for me.

I don't have a link to hand, but it's pretty easy to look up, just involves fooling around in the Firefox profiles folder (hasn't changed at all since the darkest Netscape days I'm sorry to say).

redenemyjoe

I was having a similar hanging problem with Firefox 3 until the other day. When I updated from 3.6 to 3.7 all was solved.