Guide | How To Speeding up Firefox Quantum (Tips)

[HarborFront]

Finally, I found some ways to speed up the slow FF

1) Most important change is the search engine.

Use searchx.mobi - the mobile version of the searx.me. It is SUPER FAST in searching!! Add it to your FF search engine list and make it as default. Unfortunately, it's not available as an extension unlike searx.me. Sometimes searx.me exhibits slowdown in searching

As you are aware Searx is a high privacy-focus (like SwissCows) FOSS search engine. However, it has the advantage over SwissCows in having the dates of the searches as listed under News

FYI, I'm also using it in my Chrome browser on my MS tablets. However, it cannot be added to FF Quantum for Windows so has to contend in using searx.me (extension) instead.

2) Avoid duplicate protection

Although FF Quantum for Android gives the user the ability to add extensions (like its desktop counterpart), however, adding the same number of extensions for a desktop-like protection slows my handphone down.

Examples in my handphone running FF

I have Emsisoft Mobile Security + Malwarebytes for blocking coin miner sites. So, any further addition of coin miner filter extensions is not necessary as this slows down my system. I have the latter removed.

In addition, I removed Nano AdBlocker since I have AdGuard Premium

Anyone knows of any other tips to speed up FF Quantum for Android?

 

[Flengo]

Pretty sure Firefox for Android is going to get some big speed improvements soon - version 62 or something I think.

 

[HarborFront]

Ok another tip.

You get super fast search with searchx.mobi. However, opening of sites is still slow.

Disable 'Tracking Protection' in FF. It could be duplicating your other web/surf protection feature in your AV mobile security app.

This helps to speed up site loading.

 

[HarborFront]

Another tip.

Changed my DNS addresses to

1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1

and FF speeds up opening pages

Edit - Not working when using public WiFi hotspots if ISP is blocking the change of DNS resolvers

 

[HarborFront]

use speedy fox and google dns

SpeedyFox not compatible with FF Quantum

Speed Tweaks (SpeedyFox) – Add-ons for Android

 

[HarborFront]

Updated

1) Slow search speed - Can overcome using searchx.mobi search engine
2) Slow website opening speed - Minimise number of extensions, avoid duplicate protections and remove surf/web/tracking protection in FF and your AV.
3) Use a fast DNS service (like CloudFlare) and avoid those secure ones. Note that certain WiFi hotspots do not allow the user to change DNS addresses
4) Slow scrolling speed and non-smooth scrolling - Use 'Yet Another Smooth Scrolling WE' extension. You can also adjust some settings in FF Quantum. Watch video here



5) If using a VPN choose the right country to minimise speed impact
6) Location must have strong WiFi/LTE signal
7) Clear browsing data and history regularly. FF has a problem of fast surfing initially but will slow down eventually

 

[Decopi]

Firefox is an incredibly customizable web-browser.
It is possible to change tons of settings in order to customize layout, performance, privacy, security etc.

Based on my experience, the new FF Quantum version doesn't need lot of tweaks.
In general, performance in FF Quantum today is more related to user hardware and internet speed (latency etc).

However, I recommend Firefox forum at Reddit (r/firefox).
There, it is possible to search subjects by keywords like "improving performance", "security", "privacy" etc... and users will find tons of suggestions, recommendations etc.

In my personal case with Firefox and performance:
I always use beta versions.
For privacy, I use FIP and Containers.
I only use Firefox on RAM, no HDD or SSD etc. Also, I am expecting for WebRender in the next months, that will run Firefox at GPU and not CPU.
I recently changed my strategy with ads, malwares, trackers etc. I am not useing extensions. Now I am migrating out of the browser, at OS level. I am testing Pi-Hole. Also, I am testing methods and software at OS level. So, I block ads, trackers, malwares etc without affecting Firefox performance. I even don't use Firefox built-in options, I am trying to use Firefox clean and minimalist as much as possible.
I avoid to use extensions, if I can do the same changing settings at "about:config", or if I can do the same out of the browser.
Etc.

But again, my final conclusion when we talk about Firefox and performance, is that there is no miracles changing settings, installing or uninstalling extensions, tweaks, hacks etc.
At the end, the only thing that really matters for performance, is user hardware and user internet speed.

 

[HarborFront]

Just sharing my latest set up for Android which gives pretty fast speed

1) Using Change DNS Pro app. Set to keweonDNS (Pri) and Cleanbrowsing (Sec). Faster than setting to DNS-over-HTTPS and other DNS-changing app
2) Not using any device-wide adblocker like Blokada, DNS66, AdGuard etc because I can see a slow down in speed
3) Using Searx.me search engine

4) Extensions in FF
a) Auto Tab Discard
b) Behind the Overlay
c) CanvasBlocker
d) ClearURLs
e) Cookie AutoDelete
f) CSS Exfil Protection
g) Decentraleyes - Helps in speeding up websites
h) I don't care about cookies - Other browsers (Brave, FF Klar, Samsung etc) cannot get rid of the EU cookie pop up message
i) IDN Safe
j) Behavioral Keyboard Privacy
k) Malwarebytes
l) Skip Redirect
m) Trace - Disabled Canvas Fingerprint Protection/WebRTC Protection/Battery API Protection/User-Agent Randomiser because they are either not supported in FF/not required or covered by other extensions
n) TrackMeNot
o) uBO (Adv Filtering Mode with noop rules from Decentraleyes) + some filters
p) User-Agent Switcher - Switch to Chrome user agent to access sites which require CAPTCHA and force sites to display in Mobile mode

This set up mirrors my tablet set up