firefox

Vacuum Firefox automatically

Dave Farquhar Software , ,

I’ve discussed vacuuming Firefox before to make it run like new, but it’s not something everyone is exactly comfortable doing. I found an extension called Vacuum Places Improved that allows you to vacuum Firefox automatically.

Most importantly, in the options for the add-on, you can make it run, say, every 50th time Firefox starts. That way, the vacuum process happens transparently–at the expense of every 50th load being slower, the database gains automatic maintenance. I’ll gladly trade occasional slower load times for improved performance.
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I may have a cure for the slow web browser

Dave Farquhar Software , ,

John C Dvorak lamented last week about slow web browsers.

I’m working on a cure.

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Mozilla goes sane with the corporate ESR version of Firefox

Dave Farquhar security, Software

In what can only be a wise move, Mozilla decided to release an ESR version of Firefox, which will be replaced once a year and patched in the meantime. A six-week cycle is perhaps manageable for home users, but it’s downright lunacy for corporate environments. It’s hard enough to test and deploy pure security fixes in 4-6 weeks, let alone test something that introduces entirely new features and deploy it.

I’m not sure that corporations and Mozilla want each other all that much, but they need each other. It’s a cheap way for a corporation to improve its security posture, as long as testing, deploying, and keeping it up to date isn’t a full-time job for someone.

Message says Firefox is already running when it isn’t

Dave Farquhar Software , ,

Earlier this week, when doing an emergency computer upgrade, Firefox gave me a weird problem. I installed Firefox, then when I tried to launch it, I got the popup dialog box stating that Firefox is already running. When, of course, it wasn’t–I’d just installed it.

There are a couple of helpful articles on Mozilla’s knowledge base.  It didn’t quite solve my problem, but it pointed me in the right direction.
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Stop me if you’ve heard this before. New Firefox.

Dave Farquhar Software ,

Firefox 9 is out. I’m running it, but due to an emergency involving a power supply deciding to cook itself, I’m running it on a different system than the one I ran Firefox 8 on. Everything’s faster on this machine–partly because I’m doing some experiments that make it stupid fast anyway–so it’s not fair to call Firefox 9 faster. Netscape 4.0 would be fast on this machine.

Once I’m comfortable that what I’m doing is safe, I’ll share.

But Firefox 9 features a new Javascript engine that’s supposed to be a lot faster, for what it’s worth. You can go get it the usual ways if you want. And if you’re conservative, given a little time you’ll be running it whether you know it or want it anyway.

And in somewhat surprising news, Mozilla and Google renewed their search agreement. Mozilla makes Google the default search engine in Firefox, and Google pays them a lot of money. So much money that Google is essentially funding the operation. Mozilla has a strange relationship with its competitors.

HP open-sourcing Web OS is a gutsy move

Dave Farquhar Software , , , , , , ,

HP announced this week that it’s not going to sell Web OS–the operating system it bought the remnants of Palm to get–and plans to open-source the platform, as well as re-introduce tablets based on it sometime in the distant future.

The move isn’t guaranteed to work, but I think it’s a shrewd move.

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Firefox 8 lands, and there’s still no official Windows 64-bit support

Dave Farquhar Software, Uncategorized ,

It’s Tuesday. Time for a new Firefox release. One without official 64-bit Windows support, of course.

The official line is because there aren’t enough native 64-bit plugins yet. Although Java and Flash are available, which are likely to be the two people care most about. Release a 64-bit browser, and the other lesser-used plugins will have no choice to follow. Wait for the plugins, and tomorrow never comes. Somebody has to blink first to end the stalemate.

At this rate, it’ll probably be Google.

Deep Firefox SQL optimization

Dave Farquhar Software , , , , , , , ,

I was looking deeper into Firefox optimization, and I found Adventures in Firefox-places.sqlite. It’s a pretty intense analysis that goes beyond the usual simple, in-browser SQL vacuum that I’ve mentioned in the past. It was written with Mac OS X and Linux in mind, which is fine, but if you run Windows, you might want to do the same thing.

It has two benefits. It speeds up Firefox, and it reduces the amount of disk space your Firefox profile occupies. The two things are related; smaller databases are quicker and easier to navigate than large ones. As for why you should care about the amount of disk space it takes up, well, on an SSD every megabyte counts.

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Making newer versions of Firefox work like a fresh install

Dave Farquhar Software ,

About a year ago, I told you about how to vacuum Firefox’s SQLite database to make it run better.

The trick still works, but they moved stuff around on us in Firefox 7.

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Disable pointless tab-opening animation to speed up Firefox

Dave Farquhar Software

Rather than just opening, Firefox tries to be cute by opening the tab halfway, then sliding open the rest of the way. If you have a fast enough system, maybe you don’t notice. But if you’re like me and like things to be as fast as possible, you can disable this behavior.

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