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]