Why has firefox become so slow?

[arroy_0209]

I am using firefox 13.0.1 in ubuntu 10.04. Now a days firefox is working very slowly at times (but not always). This applies not only to web browsing but also to setting internal preferences etc. Just now I tried to edit preference, so I first clicked edit-> preference and the firefox preferences window opened after may be 10 seconds. Why is it behaving this way? I always try to keep ubuntu updated by installing the suggested installations. I also have add-ons like adblock plus, noscript, better privacy, click and clean. These had been there since long without the slowness issue. What should be done to make firefox work as usual?

[vasa1]

Try in "safe mode". Alt+ Help, R. Is the slowness still there?

[arroy_0209]

Thanks. However a little suggestion is required. Will starting firefox in safe mode not disable all add-ons? That is not really desirable. Is there any way to enhance firefox speed without giving up security add ons?

[vasa1]

Thanks. However a little suggestion is required. Will starting firefox in safe mode not disable all add-ons? That is not really desirable. Is there any way to enhance firefox speed without giving up security add ons?

The purpose is indeed to start without extensions. If you don't see the problem, it would indicate that one or more extensions are somehow responsible. It's not a permanent solution, just helps in troubleshooting.

[flemur13013]

... Just now I tried to edit preference, so I first clicked edit-> preference and the firefox preferences window opened after may be 10 seconds. Why is it behaving this way?

For me it's the shockwave flash plugin: I disable it and everything's good. It messes up pages which apparently don't have flash, but almost everything works fine without it. It's easy to turn off & on with the 'all in on sidebar'.

[SparTacux]

Did the updated Firefox check your add-ons for compatibility & make any changes to the add-ons? I'm curious what would happen if someone stopped the compatibility test after an update.

[zombifier25]

The Firefox addon compatibility check is not realy reliable. It all depends on the addon maker, because Firefox addons now doesn't need special modifications to work with newer Firefox versions if it's compatible with Firefox 10 (and again, this depends)

[typos1]

I had a very similar problem, so I installed chrome, which improved things a little.

Just got a new pc so did a new install and everything is fine now.

So maybe installing something like bleachbit to clean things up will help ?

[lovinglinux]

See http://webgapps.org/groups/firefox/f...oubleshooting/