• From: France, but living in Prague
  • Registered: 2009-04-13
  • Posts: 222

Topic: How to speed up firefox

seen on tux machine

http://www.dreamlogic.net/archives/spee … tu-firefox

Speed Up Ubuntu Firefox — For Real!
June 29, 2009 319 views 3 comments

So I was getting a bit frustrated with the responsiveness of my Ubuntu Firefox when compared to the Firefox installed on my Windows machine. I’d tried everything I could find, from about:config tweaks to disabling IPv6 support, but still Firefox remained one area where the Windows experience was actually noticeably faster.

So I did some further research. Turns out the default installed version of Ubuntu’s Firefox has Pango, a font and script smoothing library, enabled by default. I’m all for smooth fonts, but it appears Pango can slow down Firefox’s performances by as much as 45%.

But don’t just take my word for it. Check out some complaints from other people regarding Pango.

To disable pango, just add the following line to your .bashrc or .bash_profile file (located in your home directory):

export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1

Re-source the file and restart Firefox to get a noticeable increase in speed.

-Chris

Disclaimer: This fix affects the default, packaged installation of Firefox on Ubuntu installations. If you’ve upgraded your Firefox install manually (ie: upgrading to this week’s release of Firefox 3.5), you most likely won’t have Pango enabled at all.

  • From: Chapel Hill, NC
  • Registered: 2009-04-08
  • Posts: 14

Re: How to speed up firefox

Nice. Guess that's why Firefox is so much faster since I upgraded. Thanks for the tip.

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  • Digit
  • #! Die-hard
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  • Registered: 2009-05-26
  • Posts: 703

Re: How to speed up firefox

oh this is brilliant.  best performance boon to firefox i've ever tried!

i switch off anti-aliasing wherever i can, it's a waste of performance, all i need do is move a foot further back from the screen, and everything appears "anti-aliased" on their own anyway.  big_smile wink

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  • omns
  • #! Die-hard
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  • Registered: 2008-11-25
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Re: How to speed up firefox

This is the most noticeable difference in the speed of Firefox that I've seen in some time. Thank you for sharing smile

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  • From: Tours, France
  • Registered: 2008-12-11
  • Posts: 75

Re: How to speed up firefox

Hello friends!
Thnaks for sharing.
This tips is really efficient smile!

A+ Francis.

  • From: Colorado Springs, Colorado USA
  • Registered: 2009-05-20
  • Posts: 238

Re: How to speed up firefox

Jdemnahouby wrote:

Re-source the file and restart Firefox to get....

pardon my n00bish-ness, but what is "re-sourcing" the file? neutral

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  • Registered: 2009-05-28
  • Posts: 244

Re: How to speed up firefox

re-executing the .bashrc by running

. ~/.bashrc

or just start a new xterm, and run firefox from that.

I will try it myself, but does text look any worse with this setting.  Any problems noticed?

  • Registered: 2009-05-28
  • Posts: 244

Re: How to speed up firefox

oh, &*&*^%#! guess who is still running FF3.5 from the mozilla download, rather than upgrading the ubuntu package - ie "firefox" runs 3.0.10

  • From: France, but living in Prague
  • Registered: 2009-04-13
  • Posts: 222

Re: How to speed up firefox

Happy that this tip interested you :-)

  • craigh
  • #! CrunchBanger
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  • From: UK
  • Registered: 2009-08-02
  • Posts: 209

Re: How to speed up firefox

Just done it, Firefox is much faster now. Thanks.

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  • Digit
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  • Registered: 2009-05-26
  • Posts: 703

Re: How to speed up firefox

jackbang wrote:

........ does text look any worse with this setting.  Any problems noticed?

imo, things look better.  crisper. every pixel in it's correct place.   to me, this feels more like it was intended.  anti-aliasing is just fancyness for plush graphics.   i put performance before aesthetics... at least where aesthetics are going to cause noticeable performance knocks.

i'll leave the anti-aliasing for prerendered graphics (like when i play with the gimp n put text on a background), and keep them well away from anywhere they need to be making demands of my processor.   leaving the processor for doing the stuff i want/need it to.   ... like fancy gimp filters. big_smile

Last edited by Digit (2009-08-19 01:15:25)

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  • From: Norfolk, VA. USA
  • Registered: 2009-08-14
  • Posts: 15

Re: How to speed up firefox

Thanks!!

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