1. Update Firefox -- if you're not running the latest version you are more at risk from unfixed
vulnerabilities and will not benefit from the latest technical improvements:
2. Remove extensions you do not need -- the more extensions you have enabled, the slower and less stable Firefox may become
3. Update extensions -- the easiest way to always keep extensions up to date is to open the
Add-ons Manager and click the Tools 'cog' at the top then select (tick) 'Update Add-ons Automatically'
4. Disable plugins you do not need -- as with extensions, the more plugins you have enabled, the more problems Firefox may encounter
5. Update plugins -- plugins from third parties such as Adobe and Oracle are often
targeted by malicious websites so it is important to keep them up to date (and new versions often include performance benefits)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________ Backing Up
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1. Open Firefox and type about:config in the address bar then press Enter.
Click the "I'll be careful I Promise" warning button to reveal a long list of preferences.
browser.display.show_image_placeholders: false
browser.tabs.animate: false
network.prefetch-next: true
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server: 8
network.http.pipelining: true
Optional: if you want Google searches in the address bar to search by
name and go straight to the right website (e.g. 'New York Times' would go straight to the nytimes.com website) rather than just
perform a standard Google search, change the value of the keyword.url preference as shown below below:
keyword.url: https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-...
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Compacting Firefox's Databases with CCleaner
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1. Close Firefox completely -- check in Task Manager that Firefox.exe is no longer running to make sure
2. Open Ccleaner and go to the Applications tab
3. Under the Firefox/Mozilla section, tick the Compact Databases box
4. Select or deselect any other items required then Run Cleaner as usual
5. After the cleanup has completed, open Firefox and you may notice some speed improvement -- particularly with the speed of opening
6. Check that Firefox (and other Mozilla products if applicable) still works as expected -- especially the Bookmarks and the Awesome (address) bar. If not, revert back to your previous profile or full backup.