Firefox speed enhancements

[koinegeek]

(Geek factor: high)

I recently bought the book Hacking Firefox (for those who don't know, Firefox is a web browser which is much more customizable than Internet Explorer, IMHO of course). I tried some of their performance enhancements and WHOA! It's like I've gone plaid and running at ludicrous-speed...

Comments

[marvthegrate]

Hey I would like to try this out. Was looking in the /chrome/ dir as I thought that was where the user.js file would be located but it is not there. Any clues you can throw my way?

[koinegeek]

Actually, you have to create the file with a text editor yourself at the same location your prefs.js file is (Documents and Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles\\user.js).

[sweet_deviant]

Forgive me my ignorance oh Geek of Greatness, for I am but a grass green neophyte in these areas, but I've a question:

when you say you must create the file with a 'text editor' are you saying that we create a .txt file?

When I got the game 'Ruins of Myth Drannor' I tried creating a 'cheat' file in the program files for it on my c drive. It was suggested I create a cheat.txt file. Is this sorta kinda the same thing?

Told ya I was grass green.

Thanks

[koinegeek]

To be absolutely geeky, I guess you can 'create' the file in more than one way (via Windows, etc..). But you need a text editor to put the stuff into the file.

Yeah, it's probably the same exact method as creating the cheat.txt file :)

[whune]

tweaking is the way yo.

so I'm curious: how do you feel firefox matches up to Opera? and why?

this isn't preface for argument, or even dicussion,
I'm just picking your brain.

"I wanna know,
*chah-chah-chah*
what you're thinking
*chah-chah-chah*
tell me what's on your mind

(pure energy).."

[insert waves and glories to the apparent resident geek here]
all hail the one who formed him.

[koinegeek]

a knife and a fork, a bottle and a cork, that's the way to spell New York...

Sorry, thanks for the Information Society flashback :)

Opera, hrm. To be honest, I've never used it at length. I read about it and know a few of it's quirks, but since it's been payware until recently, I haven't really been into it. I just downloaded it and may try it out.

One thing that I know I'll love about Firefox compared to Opera - I can customize the bejeebus out of it. It gives me a canvas in which to let my inner-hacker-child play :)

[arevanye]

I have this utility that I downloaded called firetune.exe. Have you heard whether it works like your hack? It was all automatic, which was good for me because I haven't been brave enough to get down into the guts of Firefox.

[koinegeek]

I've never heard of firetune. I'll check it out. I would imagine that all firetune does is tweak the same preference settings as I listed above, plus or minus a few.

I'm just the opposite with regards to tweaking. The closer I can get to the actual configuration files to tweak settings, the better. I feel like I have much more control. That's often my gripe about Windows - you have to jump through many hoops to tune/tweak/debug the OS (compared to Unix). Of course, it just takes some time and experience to gather a toolbox sufficent to handling Windows :)