Firefox has been improving drastically in terms of performance with every release. It’s pretty evident in recent months, which is very heartwarming to be honest.
I, however, do to some bad circumstances, have been stuck with a not-so-good laptop (8 GB RAM, a 6th gen processor in AMD A8 7410) and Firefox doesn’t run that well on it. This is something that I’ve observed with Firefox- if you have a decent machine then it will run amazingly fast. However, on lower-end machines, performance can be a struggle AT TIMES.
Any tips on making this browser run at it’s best potential on a weak system are appreciated!
Installing an adblocker like uBlock Origin improves performance but aside from that I don’t think there’s a lot you can do
I mean, yes, you can do more. But is it realistic? Probably not. Like disabling javascript and css styles.
It baffles me how many websites won’t even show the actual, basic content without javascript. I don’t care how cool it looks when the paragraph flies in from the side, I just want to read the damn thing.
The modern Internet is pretty terrible. I use ublock origin and no script to make it bearable. But it does add a lot of tedium when I go to a new site and everything is broken and the site’s functionality relies on multiple 3rd party scripts.
I think the biggest limiting factor here is the lack of RAM on that system.
Hmm, you reckon? I do have another RAM slot empty (8GB (currently in use) + 8 GB (empty right now)).
Seems like I should add more RAM to my laptop for now.
I use this about:config settings to tweak FF performance on Android and Desktop
browser.tabs.useCache: true dom.script_loader.bytecode_cache.strategy: 2
browser.cache.jsbc_compression_level 0-9
You can set the value to 5 for modest performance
Note :
I use thinkpad X240, Core i5 gen 4, 8GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, Windows 10 (debloated)
Thinkpad x200s (2009) with Core2Duo SL9400, 2gb RAM, 128gb SSD + AntiX Linux with herbsluftwm.
Firefox will not perform smooth here, but very usable. I watch youtube video from Yewtube on Terminal + mpv, browsing only on Lemmy, news on Newsboat RSS feed, Palemoon if some news sources are heavy, and download with wget.
IMO if you experiencing problem on Firefox with that spec, I think there’s a problem with your Operation System or your OS is very hungry power. I recommended using Q4OS linux with pure profile installation for minimalist system out of the box in KDE environment. The performance are very good on my Thinkpad x260…
replace ur hdd with a sata sdd.
other frivolous measures tha could help: replace ur cpu thermal paste to avoid thermal throttling and make sure it makes good contact with heat sink+clean fan with brush
format the hdd and reinstall ur os (especially if its windows)
IMO “performance” is almost impossible to talk about in any rational way. People have different expectations. Biases and fallacies are at play. Performance is almost like medicinal effectiveness. It’s the domain of anecdote.
My anecdote: I run Firefox on specs much inferior to your “struggling” laptop, and have done for years. Think: very low-end laptops which don’t even have fans. I have rarely had any speed issues to bother me. It’s fine, it feels plenty fast enough to me. Yes, absolutely comparable to the computers I’ve used in office environments. Obviously I might have a different experience with video games or video editing. But I mean, in the end Firefox is only a web browser, if people are having issues rendering web pages on any consumer device, to me it really feels like something is wrong.
TLDR: Firefox has been zippy on every cheapo low-end laptop I have ever used, no performance tweaks requires, and I do have comparisons for reference.
Addendum: it just occurred to me that you might be using Windows, not Linux! If that is the case, I have an obvious suggestion for a performance tweak. 😏
