I really do prefer Firefox, but I've always found it to be a bit sluggish. Well, once I got rid of the glut of unused extensions (do I really need weather on my status bar?) that seemed to help, but in comparing it to IE (on my PC) or Safari (on my Mac) it still didn't measure up. Then I found the Extreme Tech article Hacking Firefox: Speed Up Your Browser. Just as I was about to give up jumping on the open-source browser bandwagon, here it was, my answer. Kinda. Some of the hints are retreads of my old IE hacks (oops, there go those auto references again) which makes me wonder why they're not simply part of the original Firefox code. Others will only apply to Windows users (though there is some reference to Unix/Linux/Mac options). I simply downloaded the Tweak Network Settings extension and let it do most of the heavy lifting for me.
It's my understanding that part of the reason Firefox is so untweaked out-of-the-box is so that each one of us can personalize the experience. Keep it smooth and simple, or overload it with extensions--you make the call. Just don't do it in the slow lane.
- Hutch
