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Firefox 4 startup gets faster
Firefox 4 shutdown is already almost instant, but Mozilla has had their sights set on faster start-up times for quite a while. Over the summer, a pair of Mozilla interns looked at simple tweaks which would make Firefox appear faster. It now looks as if at least one of the suggested changes will make its way in to Firefox 4.
Thanks to what Mozilla is calling Cascaded Session Restore, the Firefox startup process has been altered so that tabs don't try to load all at once. While three or four tabs might not make the 'fox sluggish, opening larger numbers of tabs can make it seem very slow out of the blocks.
Now, with CSR, Firefox will only load a specified number of tabs at once -- three by default, though you can customize the number in about:config. As Mozilla Links points out, Firefox will do its best to load the tabs you're likely to use first (your last focused tab from a previous session or most frequently viewed pages). CSR also works with Panorama: you can change a page's load priority by moving it to a different group.
Mozilla has also taken inspiration from the BarTab add-on: set browser.sessionrestore.mx_concurrent_tabs to 0 and tabs won't begin loading until you give them focus.
Intrepid testers, download the new nightly build and give it a try! Does Firefox 4 seem to start up faster when processing your tabs in bite-sized chunks?
[via Mozilla Links]
Thanks to what Mozilla is calling Cascaded Session Restore, the Firefox startup process has been altered so that tabs don't try to load all at once. While three or four tabs might not make the 'fox sluggish, opening larger numbers of tabs can make it seem very slow out of the blocks.
Now, with CSR, Firefox will only load a specified number of tabs at once -- three by default, though you can customize the number in about:config. As Mozilla Links points out, Firefox will do its best to load the tabs you're likely to use first (your last focused tab from a previous session or most frequently viewed pages). CSR also works with Panorama: you can change a page's load priority by moving it to a different group.
Mozilla has also taken inspiration from the BarTab add-on: set browser.sessionrestore.mx_concurrent_tabs to 0 and tabs won't begin loading until you give them focus.
Intrepid testers, download the new nightly build and give it a try! Does Firefox 4 seem to start up faster when processing your tabs in bite-sized chunks?
[via Mozilla Links]
Comments
15
Subscribe to commentsBill MintonSep 19th 2010 10:17AM
Larger "amounts" of tabs? Don't you mean numbers? They aren't liquid, you can count 'em. ;-)
Lee MathewsSep 19th 2010 10:19AM
Heh, yes indeed, Bill. Thanks for catching that. This is what happens when you start a post at 5AM after getting
SilverWaveSep 19th 2010 4:30PM
This weeks pedant award goes to.... ;-)
LOL
Bill MintonSep 19th 2010 4:38PM
I definitely understand the 5am thing. If my wife and I weren't constantly on our 6yr old about that exact thing about 50 times a day, I probably wouldn't have thought a thing about it.
Admittedly, I am a stickler for details though. :)
Steven HallSep 19th 2010 1:39PM
I never really understood the obsession to make programs (or OSes for that matter) start and shutdown "almost instant[ly]". I can't remember the when I last started my web browser on the machine I am composing this comment upon. Let's say that it was one week ago.
So, if the browser started up in, say, 15 seconds instead of 30 one week ago why would that matter?
5hRreDDySep 19th 2010 3:23PM
Yes, but not all of us can afford to rack up our electricity bill by leaving our computers on 24/7.
MarkSep 19th 2010 6:00PM
It seems that more technical users tend to leave their browsers open for longer periods of time, while less technical users tend to shut their browsers down more frequently (daily or even multiple times a day). They tend to shut their computers down at the end of the day.
My mother will browse to a site and when she is done she will close the browser.
Other examples are a work computer at the office and a shared family computer.
The bottom line is that average (less technical) users are more common than technical users, so their experience of the browser startup is not insignificant.
SilverWaveSep 19th 2010 4:28PM
It depends on your workflow if that works for you great ;-)
Normal ppl close it a lot more often... or would if startup was FAAST.
heh
IridescentSep 19th 2010 10:07PM
5hRreDDy, some people hibernate their computer. On Windows, this means the power is shut off but the memory is written to disk - you don't need to to close off programs.
DerekSep 19th 2010 3:19PM
I close the browser window when I am not using it because I don't like clutter. I probably open a new browser window 20 to 40 times a day. Now multiply that by 11 (the number of seconds it takes for firefox to load when I start it) and you've got 220 to 440 seconds--that's 3mins 40 to 7mins 20 out of the day waiting for a browser to load.
It takes 3 seconds to load IE9 beta on my computer.
beeeahillbillySep 19th 2010 3:41PM
Bar Tab already provides this functionality and just so happens to work fine with the current minefield build.
SilverWaveSep 19th 2010 4:25PM
Yeah BarTab is very cool.
If yo have 30+ tabs its a must, it is a real game changer.
I actual shut my browser down _more_ now, as there is no startup penalty.
IridescentSep 19th 2010 10:49PM
They are similar. This segments tabs but BarTab give you granular control, if you haven't unloaded a tab and don't unload it after some time, when you open Firefox I think it will load that tab as normal.
ronmosesSep 20th 2010 10:06AM
I have FF set to open to a blank tab and it still takes about 3 minutes to launch after a cold boot. I usually come home from work, start up the PC, and go do last night's dishes while that's going on. Once the PC is booted I double-click the FF icon and go change out of my work clothes. By the time I come back to the PC, FF is usually just starting to load. I only have about a half-dozen extensions installed. So obviously anything that will speed launch time is good for me.
GeorgeNov 7th 2010 6:26PM
Firefox 4-beta6 takes THIRTY TWO seconds to startup on my reasonably fast and modern computer -way longer than any other browser and longer than any prior release of FF.
I do not restore sessions at all - my default is to open one BLANK (about:blank) tab. This time is the startup time for a single blank tab.
It's really horrible. My COMPUTER boots into Windows 7 from a total power off state in about the same time! (Minus the poweron/bios check time).
FF is getting so ridiculous on startup time I'm getting ready to dump it!
Design goal is definitely not being met!