Useful Tweaks & Ways To Speed Up Firefox 4

Firefox 4 is on the way and the beta version has been released for the testing purpose. The new version 4 of the most popular browser is stunning in looks and performance. Here are some tweaks and ways which can be used to Speed Up Firefox 4.

#1) Performance tweaks for Firefox 4 to increase the browsing speed

Type “about:config” (without quotes) in the address bar and proceed by pressing the I’ll be careful, I promise button. Now in the filter field type in the following values one by one and set its value accordingly. For eg, type network.http.pipelining, you will see the corresponding value appearing below, double clicking it will set the value to true or false and if its some thing which has a value to be set, a popup window appears where you could enter the value for the field.

network.http.pipelining => true
network.http.proxy.pipelining => true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests => 12
content.notify.backoffcount => 5
plugin.expose_full_path => true
ui.submenuDelay => 0
network.dns.disableIPv6 => true
javascript.options.jit.chrome => true
javascript.options.jit.content => true

If any of the above value doesn’t appear, then follow the steps below.
For a setting with true or false value. For eg, if you don’t see the value being displayed below while typing content.notify.backoffcount on the filter field just right click on an empty space and select Boolean from New. Type content.notify.ontimer in the box and set its value to true.

The same is applicable if you are setting a integer value, except that you need to select Integer from the right click menu.

#2) Speeding Up Firefox 4 by cleaning up the SQL Data base

Firefox uses a my sql database where various values and entries are being stored during its usage. With time this get accumulated like unwanted registry entries left behind after an uninstallation in windows. So its necessary to clean the firefox 4 database once in a while.

• For this, Press Ctrl + Shift + J in your firefox browser. You would see the error console window being displayed.
• Click inside the code field and paste the following code and press on Evaluate.
  Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL(“VACUUM”);
  
• Firefox will now freeze for some time and will be back to normal.

#3) Keyboard Shortcuts for Firefox 4

In one of my earlier posts I have created a list of 20 useful keyboard Shortcut for browsers to enhance your browsing experience and speed up your work. Check these out.
Ctrl + T (Open A New Tab) – Instead of right clicking and selecting or clicking the New Tab option, using the Ctrl + T keyboard shortcut will help you open a new tab in the current window.
Ctrl + W (Close the Current Tab) – Like Opening a New Tab in your browser, this will help you to Close the Current Tab you are working with.
Ctrl + N (Open A New Window) – This will help you to open up a new window in your browser.
Ctrl + D (Bookmark Current Website) – Bookmark your useful websites using this easy shortcut.
F5 ((Refresh)) – Refresh the Current Open Tab.
Ctrl + F5 (Hard Refresh) – Clear the cache of the current stored webpage and stores a fresh new copy. Thats what a Hard Refresh is for. Helpful when just posted comments don’t appear etc.
Ctrl + H (Show History) – You know it! Show the history of previously visited webpages.
Ctrl + L or Alt + D or F6(Not For Opera) (Highlight Search Bar) – No need to move your mouse and click on the address bar to type a websites address in your browser again. Just use this quick shortcut.
Ctrl + E (Highlight Search Bar) – This will move the cursor to the search bar. Save the time you move your mouse over to the search bar!
Ctrl + (+/-) (Zoom In/Out) – Zoom in or Zoom out the current pages.
Ctrl + F (Find) – Instantly find a particular text on the current page.
Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V (Copy/Paste) – I bet you already know this!
Home / End (Top / Bottom) – These will help you to go to the Top or Bottom of a Page in a Jiffy.
CTRL + Click (Not for Opera) (Open Link in Background) – Open a link in a Background Tab without interfering your work.
CTRL + U (Source) – View the source code of the current website.
CTRL + left Click (Save Images (Opera Only)) – In fact this is a really a very handy shortcut that will save time. Why need to right click on an image and select the Save Image… option? Just Hold down the Ctrl key and click the left mouse button.
CTRL + Shift + T or (CTRL + Z also works in Opera) (Restore Tab) – This will help you to quickly reopen or recover previously closed Tab easily.

#4) Addons to browse faster on Firefox 4

Adblock Plus extension will block the advertisements you see on various websites and there by making things easier to read and enhancing your browser experience.