Arch Linux

perost

Member

Registered: 2007-01-23

Posts: 52

Solution to slow FF3 startup and shutdown

Hi!

I've been having some problems with Firefox 3, namely the startup and shutdown taking a long time. When I exited Firefox I sometimes got the "not responding" dialog from Gnome because it took so long. However, today I finally got irritated enough that I started searching for a possible solution, and I found one! I found this thread on OpenSuses forum, which describes a solution.

The problem had to do with Firefox anti-phishing methods, which involves contacting google and keeping a large database. This database was 51 MB for me, and it seems like Firefox read it each time it started, and wrote to it when it exited. Turning off the anti-phishing and deleting all the urlclassifier files in my profile-folder made an enormous difference in startup and shutdown time. Instead of taking several seconds it now is almost immediate to start or exit Firefox.

I thought that this solution might be interesting to more people on this forum since Firefox ships with these features enabled by default, and it's probably affecting more people than me. Perhaps it should also be added to the Firefox Tips and Tweaks wiki page? I'm not sure what the policy on editing the wiki is though, or even if I'm allowed to edit that page.

byte

Member

From: Düsseldorf (DE)

Registered: 2006-05-01

Posts: 2,046

Re: Solution to slow FF3 startup and shutdown

Yeah, I noticed that disk trashing too, shortly after the firefox3 upgrade, and turned it off (the "tell me if... suspected..." stuff in the security prefs).

Editing the Wiki is greatly encouraged for everyone (except spammers of course

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finferflu

Forum Fellow

From: Manchester, UK

Registered: 2007-06-21

Posts: 1,899

Website

Re: Solution to slow FF3 startup and shutdown

Thanks for the tip, even though I think this is not recommended for people who don't really know their way around the web.

But hey, we are Archers, we're smart.......

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Have you Syued today?
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teacha

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2008-04-22

Posts: 58

Re: Solution to slow FF3 startup and shutdown

Just tried this - it does make a difference.

sand_man

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-06-10

Posts: 2,164

Re: Solution to slow FF3 startup and shutdown

Thanks this works great.

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Lord Illidan

Member

From: Malta

Registered: 2007-10-25

Posts: 248

Re: Solution to slow FF3 startup and shutdown

Thanks for the tip. Have an internet!

Renan Birck

Member

From: Brazil

Registered: 2007-11-11

Posts: 401

Website

Re: Solution to slow FF3 startup and shutdown

Great. I was getting irritated by FF taking long times to launch, sometimes I would launch it once and, seeing that it didn't start, launch it again....

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x64 Arch + KDE|last.fm|twitter|blog|git|stack exchange|AUR

perost

Member

Registered: 2007-01-23

Posts: 52

Re: Solution to slow FF3 startup and shutdown

Ok, since it seems like this solution actually helps more people than just me I've added it to the wiki here. English is not my first language, so feel free to correct any error I might have made.

Berticus

Member

Registered: 2008-06-11

Posts: 731

Re: Solution to slow FF3 startup and shutdown

I never experienced any sluggishness with FF3, but tried this anyway. Oddly it made everything slower...