Mac site Mac OS X Hints has a quick and easy tip that will make Firefox start up faster. According to the hint, Firefox stores information about all of your file downloads until you tell Firefox to ditch the data. The author was used to waiting a long time for Firefox to start on his Mac, when he noticed Firefox’s download history window still had information dating back to the first day he installed Firefox. Once he cleaned out that data, Firefox began starting up noticeably faster.
“I clicked the Clean UP button on the Downloads window, and quit Firefox. When I restarted Firefox, it went from a 12+ bounce launch to a three-bounce launch on my iMac G5. The Mac Pro was even more surprising. It’s brand new (one week this Monday), but I had imported info from my Powerbook G4. It went from five or six bounces to one.”
The exact procedure for cleaning out the Firefox downloads window is as follows:
- Click Tools. Up at the top of your screen, next to File, Edit, View, etc…
- Click Downloads.
- The Downloads window appears. Click the Clean Up button in the lower right corner.
The author of this hint describes Firefox on a Mac, and Mac OS X hints itself is obviously a Mac site. When the author says “12+ bounces”, he’s referring to the fact that on a Mac, a program’s icon will bounce up and down until the program finishes starting up. Despite the Mac-centric nature of this tip, it will work on Windows too. Whether or not the performance implications are the same, I cannot say for sure.
13 responses
March 15th, 2007
Andrew Sinclair says:
I’ve always found software to be fascinating, because you can make a program as powerful as possible, come out with new and improved versions, but at the end of the day people have to utilize the program to optimize it. If we don’t know how to use the software we’re stuck. it’s interesting how we all ways have to understand the social side of things. http://www.nlearnseries.com/wordpress
March 15th, 2007
Chris says:
I’ve found that after 10 or more downloads, it really degrades Firefox’s performance. Not sure why it would do this since it is only a list of what has been downloaded but it is definitely noticeable.
March 15th, 2007
star says:
Use the Download Statusbar add-on and downloads can clear automatically.
March 15th, 2007
Of Zen and Computing says:
Great additional tips! There are lots more in the comments on this Lifehacker article.
March 15th, 2007
John Bennett says:
Firefox is a RAM hog. I regularly close it and then reopen it. Be sure to check the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete), put the cursor on Firefox and click End Process since closing it doesn’t always clear its RAM use. I then restart Firefox and click Restore Session which brings me back to where I was but with a lot more RAM open.
March 15th, 2007
Speed Up Firefox? « Thinking Things Through says:
[...] Speed Up Firefox? This looks like a good hint. [...]
March 15th, 2007
Vikram says:
I don’t use MAC, but windows and firefox 2. There is an option to clear download history everytime one closes firefox. In tools - options - privacy - private data check the box near ” Always clear my private data when I close firefox” and in settings check all items you want to clear. Here you go. The next user would not know what you don’t want him to. Alternatively you can disable history all together in the same place.
March 15th, 2007
El Geek » Tip para Firefox: Limpiar el historial de descargas says:
[...] Fuente: Lifehacker, OfZen… Compartir articulo: [...]
March 15th, 2007
Firefox Tip: Clear your file download history « carljames.org says:
[...] + Speed Up Firefox by Cleaning Out Your Downloads [Of Zen and Computing] [...]
March 15th, 2007
Alan says:
Firefox 2 has the option to remember/not remember the download history, so if you recommend “cleaning it” why not just disable it altogether?
Tools > Options > Privacy > Remember What I’ve downloaded
March 15th, 2007
sure says:
ctrl + j
March 15th, 2007
redemption in a blog - Firefox Recommendation #1: Clearing download history automatically says:
[...] Today’s recommendation: get Firefox to clear the list of downloaded items in the download manager to keep your Firefox speedy. You’ve probably read about how cleaning up your download history can help speed up Firefox (on Of Zen and Computing or on Mac OS X Hints), but do you really want to remember to clear up your download history manually? [...]
March 15th, 2007
james says:
I like to keep the list of files I’ve downloaded handy for logging purposes. So on my XP machine with FF 1.5 I copy the %appdata%\mozilla\firefox\profiles\ffpgiv4b.default\downloads.rdf
file to another location just in case I would like to see my downloads later.
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