CBT Bazar

If you use Mozilla Firefox on a regular basis, you may experience very long startup times, possibly several minutes. This may happen if you have a lot of extensions, themes, and plugins installed, or there may be something wrong with your profile. It also depends on what extensions are installed. Some extensions may take up a lot of resources.

There is a test you can perform to see if the installed extensions and themes are slowing down the start time. To do this, start Firefox in Safe Mode. You can find this command in the Mozilla Firefox program group on the Start menu.

Running Firefox in Safe Mode, starts Firefox without loading any extensions or themes. We tried this with our installation of Firefox in Windows XP, and it loaded a lot faster. We have a lot of extensions installed and several themes.

If you have been using your profile for a long time, that may be slowing down Firefox’s startup time, also. We have previously written about different methods for speeding up the startup time for Firefox (see our posts, Speed Up Firefox by Preloading Firefox Components, and Speed Up Firefox with a Single Click). You can also improve your startup time in Firefox by creating a fresh, new profile. This method can be helpful if you think one of your extensions or themes is causing the slow startup. You can reinstall extensions and themes one at a time in your new profile and see how they affect your startup time.

NOTE: Before creating a new profile, we recommend that you backup your current profile in case you want to go back to it. See our post, Backup Firefox and Thunderbird Profiles, for more information. Also, you can generate a list of extensions, themes, and plugins installed in your current profile, so you know what you had installed. See our post, Save and Print a List of Firefox Extensions Installed on Your Computer.

To open the Firefox Profile Manager in Windows 7, open the Start menu and enter the following command in the Search programs and files box.

firefox.exe -P

NOTE: There is a single dash before the “P.”

Press Enter or click the resulting link.

If you are using Windows XP, select Run from the Start menu and enter the same command (firefox.exe -P) in the Open edit box. Click OK.

NOTE: If the “firefox.exe –P” command does not work, enter the full path to Firefox enclosed in quotes, as follows:

“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” –P

The Firefox – Choose User Profile dialog box displays. Click Create Profile.

The Welcome screen on the Create Profile Wizard displays. Click Next.

Enter a name for your new profile in the Enter new profile name edit box. If you want to store the new profile in a different location other than the default location listed, use the Choose Folder button to select a different folder. We chose to create the profile in the default location. Click Finish.

You are returned to the Firefox – Choose User Profile dialog box. While you are trying out your new profile, you might want Firefox to ask you which profile you want to use each time it opens. To do this, select the Don’t ask at startup check box so there is NO check mark in the box.

Turning off the Don’t ask at startup option causes the Firefox – Choose User Profile dialog box to display every time you open Firefox. Select the profile you want to use from the list (for this example, select the new profile) and click Start Firefox.

The Firefox – Choose User Profile dialog box closes and Firefox opens using the new profile.

If you decide to keep your new profile because it is performing faster, you may still need to transfer some important information, such as passwords, from your old profile to your new one. To do this, see Mozilla’s article, Recovering important data from an old profile, in their Knowledge Base, for information about the location of the different types of files in your profile and how to transfer them.

Once you have set up your new profile the way you want it, and it starts up sufficiently fast, you can delete the old profile by selecting it in the Profile Manager and clicking the Delete Profile button.