I read a tip on Lifehacker recently where a reader offered a very simple tweak which may boost your Firefox performance.
Essentially, if you have multiple languages set in Firefox, it will slow down the rendering engine (as each language gets processed separately). By default, US installations will have 2 languages configured: English and English/US, so by removing one of them it saves some processing Firefox does on page loads. Here is how to make the change:
- Go to Tools > Options
- In the Content tab, click the Choose button in the Languages box
- Remove one of the languages selected (if you have more than one)
- Save your changes
I removed the "English/United States" option. Regarding the content display I can’t tell the difference but, quite frankly it is hard to tell if there is any speed increase because there are several factors involved. Overall though, the concept makes sense so why not?
Give this a try and if you notice a difference, please share.
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If I only had two languages installed and *needed* to remove one to boost Firefox performance, I think I’d just switch to another browser. I can understand why it would technically improve performance, but considering how unnoticeable it *should* be, I’d rather keep the extra language support.
I removed English (en) and left English/UnitedStates and noticed a difference in page loading times. Not a lot of difference but yes, it does speed things up a bit.
Every little bit helps! Thanks.
this is a great tip….somehow my browser only had one language in it…hopefully it helps others
Actually I found I needed English/United States in my browser languages in order for Microsoft to detect my region. Foe example if you do not have English/United States added microsoft security essentials will tell you you’re in a region which does not support this software, however adding English/US allowed me to access the site. I am assuming other websites out there use this same method to authenticate. I hope this helps anyone who has had issues since modifying their language settings.