FireFox changes tabs slowly

Have you ever had the issue of FireFox suddenly slowing down quite drastically when trying to change tabs? This can be a REAL pain, especially when you’re researching something…

Well, it might just be BECAUSE you’re researching something that your tabs are changing slowly.

If you are using any plugins/extensions that need to reload whenever you change a tab, this reload will slow you down. Good examples of this are the “Web Developer” extension, and the “All In One Sidebar” (AIOS) extension. The AIOS extension will cause your tabs to change slowly if you used it to view the “Page Info” for whatever tab you’re on. Then, when you change tabs, it will load that info into the sidebar, and keep doing that every time you change tabs.

So, when you’ve finished viewing information about your current tab, click on the “Extensions” button in the AIOS extension. Even if you’re closing/docking the AIOS.

If this answers your question/solves your issue as well, please let me know. And if it doesn’t, leave a description of your problem in the comments section below. I’ve had another instance where FireFox was responding really slowly, though that ones a bit more complicated…

Using your tabs in FireFox

The main benefit to using FireFox is the ability to browse the internet using tabs. The tabs enable you to have just one FireFox program running, and yet have multiple “windows” open. These tabs could effectively be different websites or different pages within one website, or both.

If you’re wondering why you would want to be able to do this, think about the steps in the following situation:

• You search for something in Google
• You see an interesting site in the results – Site #1, for example. So you go to that site
• You read the site, browsing to different pages in the site
• You realise it wasn’t quite what you were looking for, so you click the [BACK] button in your browser until you find your Google results
• You go to the NEXT result that seems interesting
• etc… etc… etc..

Now, look at it from the FireFox perspective:

• You search for something in Google
• You see an interesting site in the results – Site #1, for example. So you open that site in a new tab
• You still have your Google results open in your current tab, so, while your new tab is loading, you carry on scanning the Google results
• You find another interesting site, and open that site in a new tab
• etc… etc… etc…
• When you finish opening up your preferred sites, you close your Google Results, and go to the first tab. Read that one, if it’s not what you want, close that tab and read the next one…

Don’t you agree that this is MUCH easier? For one thing, you won’t wait as long for pages to load because you are scanning and reading one tab while the other tab(s) load in the background.

How to open new tabs in FireFox

There are 3 main ways to open new tabs in FireFox with your mouse:

1. Right-click on the link and click on “Open in new tab”
2. While holding the [CTRL] key, click the link with your left mouse button
3. Use the middle button on your mouse to click on the link

Happy browsing with tabs.

Download FireFox for browsing optimisation

Before I list ALL the shortcuts I’ve learnt to use and now depend on using the FireFox web browser, I think you’ll need to go and download it and then install it.

This is of course only the beginning. Once it’s installed, there are a whole host of extensions/plugins for FireFox that will help you improve and speed up the way you browse the internet. And I will show you what I use and how I use them…

If you’re already using FireFox, and you think you have some great tips and tricks (or extensions you like), then please feel free to leave a comment anywhere so that you can share your info. Any ideas are welcome, even if you think it’s obvious.