I need help in finding ways to improve the speed of Firefox
Hello Everyone, A week ago after using 'system restore' an error message came up saying "XPCOM failed to load". Not really knowing what to do I rebooted my computer using the "Last know configuration to have worked" or something to that effect and then I had to install the latest version of Firefox, 29.0.1 and it cleared that error message. But now my computer is beyond being slow, it's worse than that. I went on to the Firefox start page, clicked on menu, then help, and then troubleshooting information and it advised me to reset Firefox which I did, but then a window appeared saying something to the effect of "Well this is embarrassing and Firefox can't be reset" because of an existing open page and something else, and at the bottom of that window it said to either restore or close. When I first brought up the page where it says to Reset Firefox, I noticed under the Graphics heading that there were three things that were blocked, Direct2D Enabled, GPU Accelerated Windows, and WebGL Renderer. Next to each of those headings to the right it said that "blocked for your graphics driver version, try updating your graphics driver to version 182.65 or newer". Not being a computer whiz I'm not sure if any of those things could be the cause of my computer operating at a snails pace. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Opaite Mbohovái (5)
That XPCOM error requires a Clean reinstall. This means you remove Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. Please follow these steps:
Note: You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.
- Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from http://www.mozilla.org and save the setup file to your computer.
- After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (click Exit from the Firefox or File menu).
- Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default (This will not delete important stuff like history, bookmarks, and addons!):
- Windows:
- C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
- Mac: Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
- Linux: If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder firefox in your home directory.
- Windows:
- Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
- Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
- Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.
More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found here.
WARNING: Do not run Firefox's uninstaller or use a third party remover as part of this process, because that could permanently delete your Firefox data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device!
Please report back to see if this helped you!
Thank you.
Hi, Thanks for answering my plea for help! Before I posted my question I had already installed the latest version of Firefox 29.0.1 and after that is when I noticed how slow everything was. When I read your message it sounded as if I had already did all those things before I posted the first time, so I wanted to check back with you before I attempted to do it all again. Please you have to remember that I am no where near computer literate and sometimes I don't think I should even be messing with the computer, but I can't afford to take it anywhere so I'm stuck trying things I maybe shouldn't even be trying. What I'm trying to say is that the help you can give me really has to be explained like you're talking to a complete idiot(at least about computers). Before I posted this message I had gone to the website you suggested "http:\\www.mozilla.org and clicked on the download button and it showed that it was already downloaded. Please if you think this will solve the slowness would you walk me through all again remembering what I said earlier being an idiot? Thanks
It is possible that the System Restore reverted you to an older graphics driver and possibly more software was affected.
You should always be cautious when doing a system restore as the outcome is usually unclear and you never know which files Windows reverts to older versions.
See:
cor-el thanks for your advice. When I clicked on troubleshooting information on the firefox help heading and under the graphics section there were three things that it said were blocked, one was under the heading of Direct2d Enable, another was GPU Accelerated Windows, and the last was WebGL Renderer, would any of these things that it said were blocked be the reason why everything just slowed down considerably? If so how do I go about getting them unblocked? Thanks
You can only correct this by installing an update for the graphics display driver as is stated on the Troubleshooting Information page: 182.65 or newer.