Browsing is so much slower in Ubuntu than with Vista

**RedMartin** · October 14th, 2009

For approximately the last two months my browsing experience has been very slow. Pages take ages to load and stuff like Youtube clips are unwatchable.

I've tried all sorts until the other day when I decided to see what it was like on Vista. Very fast. Switched back to Ubuntu and it was slow.

I'm using Firefox on both. Ubuntu is 8.10 and fully updated. I've looked at the DNS servers and they match. I've switched IPV6 off. I've run numerous speedtests which all report that I should be having a fast browsing experience. The reality if the FF through 8.10 is so slow I'm seriously considering switching back to Vista.

I've used Ubuntu for about a year and really like it but this is a deal-breaker if I can't fix it. Was there a major update about two, maybe 3 months ago that has caused some kind of problem?

**yeats** · October 14th, 2009

I've used Ubuntu for about a year and really like it but this is a deal-breaker if I can't fix it. Was there a major update about two, maybe 3 months ago that has caused some kind of problem?

That seems to indicate that it *used* to be faster...?

If you've added add-ons/extensions, it may be one of them (or a conflict between two or more add-ons). You can easily test this by closing any open firefox sessions, opening a terminal, and typing:

Code:

firefox -safe-mode

which will disable any add-ons. If things move faster, you'll know where to look.

Otherwise, there are *many* "speed up firefox" posts on the web, and if you're brave, you can install FF3.5 using Ubuntuzilla. (which I've used without issue).

**RedMartin** · October 15th, 2009

You're spot on about how it was faster. I've not added anything to Firefox for months. I'll give the safe-mode a try though.

**WinterMadness** · October 15th, 2009

try epiphany-browser

its basically firefox without all the freezing

**RedMartin** · October 15th, 2009

Originally Posted by WinterMadness

try epiphany-browser

its basically firefox without all the freezing

I've tried it and it's also subject to slowness with my current problems. As Swiftfox suffers too I'm guess that the 'dodgy' add-on route may be a dead end.