So close you can taste it

<span style="color: lightblue">And with almost 11 million downloads (according to Spread Firefox), it's not a moment too soon. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Yay for Firefox! The only bad thing is the startup time. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Watch for Windows to make a new "better" version of IE, soon. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

<span style="color: lightblue">Microsoft have announced that 1) IE7 isn't going to ship until Longhorn; and 2) It still won't fix alot of IE's rendering bugs. So, a better IE is a long way off yet...

The startup time can be improved, depending on one thing: what OS are you running?

Dude, Firefox starts up slowly with Windows XP and a gig of RAM...now, my processor isn't THAT terribly slow (though this *is* a laptop), but really Firefox is just slow startup. The two are synomymous. Very sad, that.

<span style="color: lightblue">Ok, first, right click your shortcut and go properties. In the location field, it will say something like:
"C:\Program Files\Firefox\firefox.exe"

Change it so that it says
"C:\Program Files\Firefox\firefox.exe" /prefetch:1

That is, put /prefetch:1 onto the end of that field. It will still start up slow the first time after a reboot, but after that it will start up almost instantly.

Secondly, by virtue of Firefox being open source, there are optimised builds. Look at MOOX, for example. Download the milestone build appropriate for your processor. Note that these are zip builds and not installer builds: You unzip them and they run from there. For best results, rename your Firefox install folder to firefox-old (for example), and unzip the MOOX build into the original folder. That is:
1) Rename the folder "firefox" to "firefox-old"
2) Place the MOOX exe into the parent folder (ie, Program Files)
3) Run the MOOX exe, letting it where it suggests.

Do these things with Firefox CLOSED.
Your shortcuts will still work. If, like most of the Windows users on Mozillazine, you like MOOX, delete the Firefox-old directory. If, like me, you don't like MOOX, delete the Firefox folder and rename the firefox-old folder to Firefox.

EDIT: By doing this, you will not loose any bookmarks, history, extensions, themes, or preferences.

[ 12-16-2004, 02:42 AM: Message edited by: LennonCook ]

I have done that, but Firefox still takes ages...

I have done that, but Firefox still takes ages... </font>[/QUOTE]<span style="color: lightblue">How long is ages? For me, it takes ~12 seconds for a cold start (after reboot) or after being closed a long time, and about 2 seconds otherwise. Also remember that prefetch only applies on Windows XP.

I'm using XP...

After a reboot, and after everything is loaded, and the little red light has stopped blinking, it can take up to 20 seconds to load up Firefox...

Its not such a huge problem, as I use that time to open other problems, but still...

<span style="color: lightblue">Ok, try changing /prefetch:1 to /prefetch:3 . This will speed it up on a cold start, but at a cost: Windows will load some of the program into memory (or atleast swap) on boot. In other words, it will make it such that Firefox is basically always residant in memory. Try the MOOX build first, though.

Jeez, I dont know what the hell is wrong with your computers, but mine is sh** and it always starts instantly, no-matter when I start it [img]tongue.gif[/img]

<span style="color: lightblue">Oddly enough, that isn't rare. Gecko apps often seem to run better on worse computers. :D

Lennoncook it wont let me change the properties to "C:\Program Files\Firefox\firefox.exe" /prefetch:1

It says the target is not valid

meh, thatnks for the link, im going to get me a poster for christmas :D

Make sure that its pointing to your firefaox directory. Unless you changed the default it should read:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" /prefetch:1

Try that Wellard

<font color=CC66FF>My Firefox starts up super fast and my computer is about average for today. Athlon 2500+ Barton, 512ram and 128 on the video. </font>

<font color=00CCFF>Check and see how much garbage y'all have running in the backround, it makes a difference. </font>

[ 12-16-2004, 06:25 AM: Message edited by: Variol (Farseer) Elmwood ]

<span style="color: lightblue">Variol, what antivirus do you use?

Tried it several times to no avail....then I cliked on the icon in the start menu (rather than desktop)and altered it's properties and it accepted it! go figure :rolleyes: anyhow it goes like bill-e-o now [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

That's personal. I could tell you but then, I'd have to kill you! :D

Actually, I downloaded a free version of AVG. I think it scans everything but doesn't necessarily fix virus problems. It has slowed this some, but not much.

<span style="color: lightblue">That would explain why Firefox loads so quickly for you. AVG uses less resources just sitting around, and also I *think* (but don't quote me on this) it doesn't scan your homepage when you open a browser. Both of these things will contribute alot to cold start time, for fairly obvious reasons.

<font color=999900>Well, you're not going to catch anything if you don't download anything. Maybe the Virus program can be set to only scan at certain times? </font>

Ta for the link, been looking to use somthing other than IE for a while and this has everything I was looking for..


Start's just as fast as IE for me.

It seems better with the moox thing... thanks.

Are you typing in /prefetch:1 onto the Location of the Shortcut (like you should) or are you going into the actual folder and selcting Firefox.exe and right clicking to get to Properties??? Just make a shortcut of Firefox.exe and put it where you want it and then right click it, select properties and then add the /prefetch:1 to the target Line. If you try on the actual exe file you will get errors. Anyway, the actual exe file (so you can make a shortcut) is usually C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox.exe .

Hi GUNNaH,
[img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img]
WELCOME TO IRONWORKS
[img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img]
Where does your name come from??? You should post it in the "Forum names" thread [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Uh, Mac OSX. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Probably don't know much about that one, do ya? ;)

<span style="color: lightblue">Have you considered Camino? It uses the same rendering engine as Firefox, but uses a user interface based on the native MacOS widget set (rather than a cross platform API). But it reportedly isn't as stable as Firefox, nor is it updated as quickly... so, if for some reason you don't want it (which is the case with many people - it's almost a religious war :D ), you may want to look for optimized builds. What type of processor are you running? A quick Google found these builds for the PowerPC 7450 and 7400 and these for the G5. You should be able to get others by Googling for optimizations for your specific processor (I just searched for "MacOS X optimized Firefox"), or by looking around the Third Party Builds forum.

Based on the fact that I've been discussing Firefox on IW I've installed the release version (I had quite a bit of time on prerelease version).

So far it is fast and stable, takes about 5 seconds to load on my Athlon XP 2400 (and I didn't muck around with any load settings). While I'll argue all day with the "evangelists" (those who proclaim their hate for M$ from the highest mountain), it's more for fun than any sense of loyalty to M$ (Predators rarely have a lot of friends [img]smile.gif[/img] ), if Firefox release proves worthy it will replace IE as my browser of choice in a heartbeat. :D

[ 12-18-2004, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: Thoran ]