Mozilla posted a list of the worst offender addons for its Firefox browser. These are the addons that really slow down that FF start up.
Mozilla actually labels them as “slow performing addons”. You can view the entire list by clicking HERE. See if any of your favorite extensions are on the list; a few of mine were, but they were down toward the bottom (minimal footprint) of the list.
You can’t get something for nothing. That’s just a universal truth. If you want your browser to do a boat load of extra tasks or jump through hoops like a circus animal, then you’re going to have to feed it. Your browser eats RAM and CPU cycles. That’s just the nature of the beast. Some are picky eaters; others are voracious monsters with bottomless pits for stomachs.
If you want your FF to be a lean mean browsing machine, you have to trim the fat a bit. Break the candy-coated addon habit. If you don’t really need it or use it, why have it installed? There are some extensions that, were they not available, would probably deter me from using FF altogether. These are my must haves.
However, I also have some fluff in there. I have a smiley extension that’s pretty cool. I also have one that adds “Go to top” and “Go to bottom” of my R-click context menu. Could I live without those? Sure, but I don’t wanna’, so I keep them. They both have very minimal footprints and seem to use next to nothing in resources within FF, so what the hell?
The beauty of FF for me is its potential for customization. You can truly make FF your own, should you care to put the effort into it. I could never do that with IE back in my Windows daze. I had to use addons for the Trident engine such as Crazy Browser and Avant to get IE to be what I wanted it to be. And even with those tools, there were limitations.
Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE Mozilla! If you have some spare change lying around, they could always use a buck or two to help defray the expenses of running that project. Mozilla creates so much for so many with so little. Help if you can.
Later…
~Eric
Notes: Don’t forget to click on links within my articles, folks. They often lead to informational sites to help you in some way; be they definitions of an uncommon word, or Wikipedia articles about certain items.
Disclaimer: I was at one time involved with the Avant Browser Support Team. I’m now retired from that excellent group. If you decide to give Avant Browser a try, tell ’em Eric sent ya’. 😉
*Originally published on my Nocturnal Slacker v1.0 blog at WordPress.com
