How can I make FireFox load into memory before running?

[Nebben]

Is it possible to get FireFox to be preloaded into RAM so that it starts immediately like IE does?

I've switched over to FireFox for almost all purposes, as I got tired of the constant spyware crap (even though SP2 addressed many, I still worry that some could sneak through).

But one of my only complaints is that it takes a bit to load, while IE used to load in milliseconds.

Any way to do this?

 

[igowerf]

Well, Firefox only loads slowly when you first run it after booting. You can put a shortcut to FF in your startup folder to have it start with Windows. You'll have to close out FF everytime you boot up but it should load quickly after that.

 

[CTho9305]

They removed quicklaunch from Firefox a while back - it still exists in Mozilla (it's one of many things I prefer about the Mozilla suite). Any claimed startup time advantages of Firefox are by far nullified if you use Quicklaunch with Mozilla.

 

[Johnnie]

If you have lots of RAM like I do then you can prefetch a number of
applications by using the /prefetch:1 switch. This will load the application
into your RAM for MUCH faster startup times. Be careful on how many programs you
do this with because it'll eat up your RAM if you do it too much
Right click on any shortcut you want to speed up and select properties. Look
in the Target. At the very end of this add /prefetch:1 to it.

link

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Johnnie
If you have lots of RAM like I do then you can prefetch a number of
applications by using the /prefetch:1 switch. This will load the application
into your RAM for MUCH faster startup times. Be careful on how many programs you
do this with because it'll eat up your RAM if you do it too much
Right click on any shortcut you want to speed up and select properties. Look
in the Target. At the very end of this add /prefetch:1 to it.

link

That prefetch thingy - how exactly does that work? I'm not really up on what prefetch is or what it does.

But anyway, I've got three separate icons for Firefox - desktop, Quick Launch, and Office shortcut bar. Do I need that switch in each shortcut?

The slow loading time of Firefox has almost been a deal breaker for other family members. I've got the PC's with either 7200rpm 8MB buffer hard drives, or fast hard drives in RAID, so Firefox doesn't take too awfully long to load. Try it on a laptop's 4200rpm drive, with a small buffer. IE, you click, and bam, it's there - probably because it's integrated into Windows, and parts of it load during bootup. Firefox....you click it, and wait. And wait....and maybe check Task Manager to confirm that it's doing something.

This prefetch - does it load Firefox during bootup then?

 

[ronach]

That was a neat speed-up johnnie, thanks.