If you want to set up Firefox on your Windows PC so that it runs as fast and smoothly as possible, and without having to figure out all those cryptic programming commands when you type …
… ‘about:config’ in the address bar, then Firetune looks like the number.
As evangelized by David Taylor in Home Computer Magazine:
[…] This piece of software is fantasic. And the reason as to why it is fantastic lies in the open source nature of Firefox. Because it has been developed in this manner, there is in fact an extensive thread on the official Firefox forums telling people what settings can be tweaked and what they will do. The author of FireTune has taken all these tweaks and provided us with a handy interface to allow us to apply the changes easily without having to do dirty manual work.
And who is the author? None other than TotalIdea software, who we know of old (so maybe we are biased?), as they produce the excellent shareware TweakXP. FireTune is freeware though. Rather than just give you tick boxes for the various settings, which may have been more attractive for hardcore tweakers, FireTune simply asks that you tell it what sort of speed computer you have and what speed internet connection and then makes its changes based on this. We like this approach, as it simply requires that you backup the configuration file (from within FireTune), click on the relevant option and then click the button to optimise.
Does it work? Oh yes. It most certainly does. Firefox positively zipped along after we used it.
Me too, David – I’m running Firefox version 1.0.1 and it definitely loads faster and loads pages faster after applying Firetune.
Oh, and David adds:
[…] Firefox users would have to be clinically insane not to try this utility out. Now. Go.
Ok!
Incidentally, Home Computer Magazine is a great resource, full of useful tips and information in every issue. I wrote about this magazine in December: interesting business model – online only, no print version.
Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.
Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.
