Make Firefox Twice as Fast and Much More Stable Easily

A must have extension for all javascript programmers is Firebug. It is my favorite extension in firefox - bar none. I cannot imagine how I managed to work on JavaScript before Firebug. But all this power comes at a price - it is slow. It causes the entire firefox application to be much slower - and sometimes even unstable. Inspite of all these shortcomings, uninstalling Firebug is not an option. A better way of making firefox faster is to create two profiles - one for browsing and another for development.

Once you made this change, the browsing profile - the one without Firebug - will be twice as fast as the other profile.

Others have noticed this speed issue as well - some have abandoned using firefox for casual browsing - opting for thinner browsers like Konqueror or Epiphany - and in extreme cases dillo or lynx. If you are in windows, there is Opera - but that will not come under the 'thin' category. IE? That's neither thin nor a browser. That is NOT an option, OK?

The Two Profile Solution

I am still not prepared to give up on firefox. To speed up firefox, I have made two profiles - Default(for browsing) and WebDev(for, well, Web Development).

That's it - now you have two profiles. Next, install all the necessary web development extensions in the new profile. My picks are...

An easier way

There is an easier method to make all this a bit less tedious. Close all fire and go to the profile folder and copy all files in the Default profile to the folder of the new profile.

Now you have an exact clone of your earlier profile. This saves a lot of time - but be careful when doing it - there is a big chance that something might get messed up.

Using the two Profiles

The default method of opening a profile is too slow for my liking. You have to open the profile manager, then select the profile you want. Not the best way.

If you want a faster way, make a shortcut to the firefox exectable on your desktop. Edit the command for the shortcut and add the arguments -P WebDev.

In windows, you can do this by right clicking on the newly created firefox icon and select properties. Select the 'Shortcut' tab and add the command line arguments at the end of the Target field. It should be something like this...
C:/Program files/Firefox/firefox.exe -P WebDev

Now create another shortcut icon - this time specify the argument as -P Default(or whatever the name of other profiles is).

Give different names for both shortcuts - it is helpful if you use a different icon as well. This is what I used...

Default/Browsing

WebDev

The other options are...

     

I realize most of you will be on windows - so these icons are not exactly your 'type'. Just use your favorite graphics editor to convert it to the ICO format before using it.

Finished

That's it - we are done. Double clicking on the WebDev icon will open up firefox using the 'WebDev' profile and the other icon will, well, you get the idea. The point is, there is no Profile Manager in the middle.

When developing, just open up the WebDev profile - at all other times use the Default profile.

Problem with this method

Yes, there is a catch. Data cannot be shared between the two profiles. Passwords saved in one profile will not be available in the other. Other unshared items are...

There is a hack around this issue too. Before starting, this is a risky endeavor. If you have needed data in your profiles, please make a backup before continuing.

Go to the profile folder of WebDev and delete the bookmarks.html file. Then create a shortcut to the bookmarks.html file in the Default profile's folder at this location. Now the bookmarks will be shared between both the profiles.

Create the shortcut just like this for the other items too. In my system, I created shortcuts for the following files/folders...

If you are still on firefox 2, use this list instead...

FYI

If anyone else tried this, please let me know how it went for you.

More Info

Comments

Ed at 23 Oct, 2007 03:00
I do basically the same thing, but I've never felt the need to copy my bookmarks, etc., over to the dev profile; instead, I use the -no-remote flag so that I can run both the default profile and the dev profile at the same time.
Reply to this.
swag at 23 Oct, 2007 09:45
Why not just "Disable" the extension when not in use?
Also if you do run two profiles try using "FoxMarks" extension to sync up bookmarks (then "Disable" when not in use)
Reply to this.
Anonymous at 24 Oct, 2007 12:36
>> Why not just "Disable" the extension when not in use?

Too much effort, switching profiles is much simpler

A similar (but more extensive) coverage of the same issue here:
Create the Ultimate Firefox Web Development Profile
Reply to this.
Peter Gasston at 24 Oct, 2007 01:44
Can you provide any evidence that Firefox will become twice as fast, or is this just an attention-grabbing headline?
Reply to this.
Sam at 24 Oct, 2007 02:02
You could just right click the little 'f' icon in the lower right of the firefox window and select 'disable firebug'. Why make things so complex?
Reply to this.
eskey at 24 Oct, 2007 03:42
You can share bookmarks between profiles by adding about:config entry named "browser.bookmarks.file" and pointing to full path of selected bookmarks.html file.

Your method is definitely not speeding up Firefox itself. It's just good advice how to keep one profile lightweight for daily usage and second, heavy "multimashine" for developing works. The first one might be faster, but not twice as the second.
Reply to this.
Muyuu at 24 Oct, 2007 04:12
Opera is also available for Linux and Mac, and their support is pretty darned fantastic. You might want to correct that "If you are in Windows there is Opera."

Good post otherwise.
Reply to this.
Anonymous at 24 Oct, 2007 04:36
To convert the pics to an .ICO file, you can for example use various favicon generator sites. They produce and ICO file from uploaded image. For example: www.htmlkit.com/services/favicon/
Reply to this.
Anonymous at 24 Oct, 2007 04:59
errrr... what's the relationship with speed ? You're not making firefox faster, you make a complex dual setting, one with a normal firefox, not faster, and another with extensions, slower. So in the end one could say this howto makes firefox 1.5 slower .........
Reply to this.
Anonymous at 25 Oct, 2007 10:45
How do you expect people to take you seriously when you can't even bother to spell check your postings? "Extream" ? Retard.
Reply to this.
Jack Slocum at 27 Oct, 2007 01:28
Here are the steps to setting up a much easier method:

1. Right click the FireBug icon in the taskbar and select "Allowed Sites" enter any site you want to run FireBug on (e.g. localhost). Hit Ok andclose the window.

2. Right click the FireBug icon again and select "Disable FireBug"

Now FireBug will be disabled for every site except for localhost.

Reply to this.
Robert Schultz at 31 Oct, 2007 10:23
I agree with most of what is mentioned in the comments.

Creating profiles is going to an extreme when it's much simpler to just 'Disable FireBug' and only enable it on sites that you want to debug.

I do like the article's pretty pictures though :)
Reply to this.
Kevin Butler at 31 Oct, 2007 11:07
Disabling firebug via 2 mouse clicks is too hard, so you clone the profile, run separate instances, cannot share cache/bookmarks, hack the files, then publish a web page describing how to do the same, and describe it as a way to make Firefox faster?

Hmm. You're 5 months early for April 1st.

kb
Reply to this.
Anonymous at 03 Dec, 2007 08:51
Wow! I do not understand people here. I do the "different profiles" approach myself. One day I had to realize, that my standard profile with over 60 extensions and an extensive skin was slowing Firefox down (ever waited for a popup or new window open with so many extensions?) till a point, I had to kill it.

Now I have four profiles and I have set the profile manager to come up on each start as default:

a) Standard - has the most useful extensions for every day's browsing
b) Developer - has none of the useful/comfort browsing add-ons but all development stuff
c) SafeSurf - enhanced privacy settings
d) Clean - mostly a default config with very little addons

The difference in speed between a naked Firefox and one with over 30 extensions is huge. If you don't believe it, test it. After this article I also have found a good solution how to share the most important "dynamic" files. I did not think about the shortcut option, must test, whether this functions well on Windows. On Linux you better would do it with symbolic links, however, I'd say.
Reply to this.
adams at 06 Apr, 2008 10:16
hey use my site to know more about overclocking firefox great tips out there I provide the direct link for that page
Reply to this.
adams at 06 Apr, 2008 10:16
tutorial-net.blogspot.com/2008/04/overclock-firefox-for-speed-surfing.html
Reply to this.
Michiel van der Blonk at 18 Apr, 2008 05:51
hm. one word: safe mode!
Reply to this.
Anonymous at 18 Jun, 2008 02:32
That's 2 words actually.
Reply to this.
Peter Krausche at 19 Jul, 2008 05:02
I've been enjoying your site -- and your scripts and various ideas. Thanks!

I implemented the Firefox WebDev profile, but since I couldn't relate to any of your icons, I tried to create my own and thought I'd share my attempts with you and the others. It's just a simple trick of using the original Firefox logo and placing the Firebug logo on top of it.

Naturally, there was no contrast and when viewed at normal icon sizes, you couldn't even see the bug anymore. So I was impertinent enough to make the Firebug green. There are two versions: the one is a bit darker and has more contrast so you can see the details a bit better; the other is brighter so you might see it better at smaller sizes.

Here are the links:

www.PeterKrausche.com/download/firefox-webdev.png
www.PeterKrausche.com/download/firefox-webdev2.png

Enjoy! (or die ROFL, *LOL*)

Reply to this.
Binny V A at 19 Jul, 2008 10:54
Nice job :-)
Reply to this.
faster fire fox helper guy at 13 Sep, 2008 12:32
A very useful guide for those who wish to speed up firefox page loading times massively for broadband connections is at www.nettechguide.com/how-to-speed-up-firefox-page-loading-times/ there is also a very cool addon for firefox that does a similar job called fasterfox available at fasterfox.mozdev.org/
Reply to this.
Carlos. Jr. at 22 Sep, 2008 09:57
Gosh, this is really really Informative. Anyone know of more tips other than tips from here, Making Firefox faster
Reply to this.
the_guv at 20 Nov, 2008 06:26
thanks for this, and for all the comments. some useful tips. for sure, firebug is a hungry plugin...it's suspend/resume though, in the bottom right of the browser, rather than disable in the addons window, to speed things up a bit.

another idea is to use Firefox for webDev and, say, Chrome or Opera for faster surfing. then lynx or similar for research.

...course, it's a pain not having all those bookmarks to hand, and you want a rammed up machine to cope with a bunch of browsers open all the time.

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