The use of web browsers seems essential to have to view all kinds of web pages. One of the most used browsers is undoubtedly Firefox . For a long time it was possibly the most used browser until Google came with Chrome, which with similar features and better performance managed to win the game. For all those Firefox users, today we are going to tell you how to load pages faster thanks to the Faster Pageload plugin .
How to improve the loading of web pages in Firefox
To improve the loading of web pages and that it occurs much faster we are going to use an extension called Faster Pageload. This plugin will take care of using preload and lazy loading in order to speed up the loading of pages in Firefox without consuming many resources . The installation, as we will see below, is quite simple, so it can be carried out by any user.
This extension requires access to all the websites that we have stored in the browser to speed up the loading of all of them. When we install, we will have to modify two options in the Firefox preferences before we can use the extension in all its fullness and performance.
Install the Faster Pageload extension
Therefore the first thing we must do is install the Faster Pageload extension from the Mozilla Firefox addons page . Here, we will click on “Add to Firefox”. Subsequently, a tab will appear informing us that Faster Pageload requires our permission to be able to access the data of all the websites that we have stored, so we will click on “Add”. The installation process is instantaneous and a new screen will appear, with another tab informing us that the installation has been completed and that we can check that the extension can also be used in private windows. Click on “Ok, understood” to close it.
Activate preload in Firefox
Once the extension is installed, we must open a new tab and put “about: config” and then press Enter. A page will appear informing us that advanced configuration preferences may affect Firefox’s performance or security. Click on “Accept the risk and continue”.
Now in the search bar we must copy “network.dns.disablePrefetchFromHTTPS” . We should see a bar just below that says “true” and we must change by clicking on the “Toggle” logo located on the right side and we will see how it changes to “false”.
Now in the same bar we must copy “network.predictor.enable-prefetch” . In this case, “false” appears in the bar below. We press the “Toggle” logo again to change it to “true”.
We can verify that the Faster Pageload extension is established with an icon in the upper right. If this icon is gray, it means that it is disabled, while if it is colored it means that the functionality of the extension is enabled.
Access plugin options
Finally, we must access the plugin options to activate a couple of values. To do this, click on the three horizontal lines in the upper right, where a menu will open where you must click on “Accessories”. Here we click on Faster Pageload and go to the Options tab. Now we will activate the two boxes that by default are disabled and press “save” to save the changes.
The first option will allow us to preload each visible link, while the second will allow slow loading of images in Firefox. In this way, the browser will only load images when they are in view or when they are about to be seen, for example, when we scroll.
From this moment on, Faster Pageload will work automatically and will be in charge of optimizing resources when we move the mouse pointer over a link to speed up the load when we click on that link. According to its developer, it will take about 400 ms from the moment we hover the mouse pointer over a link until the moment we click on it to load the page.
The extension will be in charge of accelerating the loading of the web page, while they are executed by clicking on the links, not working in the event that the pages are opened automatically, such as when we start the browser or through the use of applications external.
