Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox slow to startup: high active time, low read speed

more options

I'm using Firefox 57.0.3 (64-bit) on Windows 8.1.

Firefox takes 3-4 minutes to start up fully. During that, the active time in Task Manager is 99-100% but the read speed by Firefox is rarely more than 2-3 MB/s. (I know the drive is capable of more since CrystalDiskMark shows the drive reading at 100 MB/s.) Websites load slowly. Addons like uBlock and Group Speed Dial don't work during this time either (ads are not blocked and I get a blank page instead of dials).

So disable addons? Well, even in safe-mode with addons disabled, startup is still slow and websites load slowly too during the first few minutes. Is Firefox churning through some large file??

Even before Quantum, I experienced similar start up speed issues.

Any solutions, please?

I'm using Firefox 57.0.3 (64-bit) on Windows 8.1. Firefox takes 3-4 minutes to start up fully. During that, the active time in Task Manager is 99-100% but the read speed by Firefox is rarely more than 2-3 MB/s. (I know the drive is capable of more since CrystalDiskMark shows the drive reading at 100 MB/s.) Websites load slowly. Addons like uBlock and Group Speed Dial don't work during this time either (ads are not blocked and I get a blank page instead of dials). So disable addons? Well, even in safe-mode with addons disabled, startup is still slow and websites load slowly too during the first few minutes. Is Firefox churning through some large file?? Even before Quantum, I experienced similar start up speed issues. Any solutions, please?

All Replies (2)

more options

Please : go to the Firefox 3 Bar Menu --> Options --> Privacy & Security panel and under Permissions check (put a tick in the box) the setting to Prevent Accessibility Services from accessing your browser.

Monitor in Task Manager. Should stay below 2 gigs. If excessive then do below and monitor and change if need to...Test and go up again , go back down, it will eventually get a zone you and it can live with.

Go to the 3 Bar Menu then Options --> General --> Performance and untick everything. change the recommended size lower then see how it runs. Note: 1 = No Multiprocessor = slow again. Try 2 Restart Firefox after making these changes please.

Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

more options

Pkshadow said

Please : go to the Firefox 3 Bar Menu --> Options --> Privacy & Security panel and under Permissions check (put a tick in the box) the setting to Prevent Accessibility Services from accessing your browser. Monitor in Task Manager. Should stay below 2 gigs. If excessive then do below and monitor and change if need to...Test and go up again , go back down, it will eventually get a zone you and it can live with.

I did this and it did nothing, same problem. The problem was not RAM but that the initial startup with slow. Near 100% active time but only 3MB/s read speed for Firefox lasting for a few minutes.

Pkshadow said

Go to the 3 Bar Menu then Options --> General --> Performance and untick everything. change the recommended size lower then see how it runs. Note: 1 = No Multiprocessor = slow again. Try 2 Restart Firefox after making these changes please. Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

I recently changed it to use hardware acceleration and 7 processes. So before, nothing was ticked and the process limit was on 1, the default. This did nothing either.