Firefox Slows to a Crawl; Freezes; Unresponsive

Has your Firebox browser suddenly become very slow? Has it slowed to a crawl?

Does it take 5, 10 ... even 20 seconds to load a simple website? Will it only let you type one character every 2 seconds? Is text blurred?

Does Firefox take forever to load? Hang? Freeze? AARGH!

I was ready to give up on Firefox. I tried creating a new profile, re-installing Firefox, and so on. But I finally found a solution that worked, and I hope it works for you: disabling Firefox's Hardware Acceleration option.

◊   How to disable the Hardware Acceleration option in Firefox:

1. Go into the Firefox browser. Click Tools* and Options. Then click the Advanced Tab. (*If you do not see the Main Menu at the top with File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools, and Help, see note below for how to access it.)
2. On the Advanced tab, remove the check mark by Use hardware acceleration when available.
3. Click OK

That's it. Then try using Firefox and see if you experience a dramatic improvement. If not, put the check mark back in the "hardware acceleration" option, and continue troubleshooting.

With hardware acceleration, Firefox is attempting to use the video card in your computer to enhance performance for certain graphic-intense applications. However, if the video card or its drivers are too old or unsupported, Firefox may have the problems described above. Firefox recommends upgrading video card drivers, but I did not wish to do this on the particular PC I was using.

NO MAIN MENU TOOLBAR?

If you don't see the main toolbar at the very top of the browser window, on new versions of Firefox you can access the Options window by clicking the dropdown arrow in the upper right corner, and then clicking Options from that menu as shown at right.


You can also temporarily show the Main Menu by pressing the Alt key. If you want to permanently show the menu, click the menu button (image shown upper left) and choose Customize Then click the Show / Hide Toolbars dropdown menu at the bottom of the screen and choose Menu Bar.

OTHER TROUBLESHOOTING OPTIONS

If un-checking Use hardware acceleration when available doesn't help, try disabling Firefox Add-ons. You can temporarily disable all Add-ons by opening Firefox in Safe Mode. To open Firefox in Safe Mode, click the Menu button (image shown above left), click the "Help" question mark, and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

Starting Firefox in Safe Mode disables all Add-ons and disables Hardware Acceleration as well. If this solves the problem, then one of the Add-ons is at fault. Otherwise, check out Mozilla Firefox's Troubleshooting Guide. PS: We are not Firefox developers and cannot respond to "help" comments. Use the Mozilla Firefox Support Forum for technical support from the developers.

Cheers!

►  Take a look at some of our other interesting posts, such as A Dozen Sample Math Formulas for Microsoft Excel

THIS is Why You Need Help Searching the Internet!

I cannot imagine browsing the Internet without using a program or browser extension like McAfee Site Advisor. Yet when I mention it to most people, I get a blank stare.

PLEASE USE THIS FREE SOFTWARE or an equivalent program that screens websites for safety. Some companies, like Norton and Zonealarm, also provide the equivalent function in some of their Internet Security suites.

We're not talking about filtering programs to shield children from nasty sites. We're talking about helping you steer clear of sites that will infect your PC with a voluntary or involuntary download when you visit.

Pictured below are the top 4 websites that Google displays when searching with the keywords free software download. Incidentally, when you hover over the red X by the third site listed, Site Advisor says the site has 198 red downloads. Think of all the people who visit this site and do not know this!


As shown, programs like Site Advisor place a dot beside each inspected site. Red=dangerous, Yellow=suspicious, and Green=good. This is no guarantee that you won't get a virus from a website, but it drastically reduces your chances!

For the keywords listed in green below, here are the number of undesirable sites Site Advisor found on the first search results page:

free TV shows = 3 Red sites
free movies = 2 Red sites
free videos = 1 Red site, 1 Yellow site
free music = 2 Red sites

Site Advisor is a free download from the McAfee Site Advisor site. The software is browser-specific, so look for the program created for your browser. The install is fast and painless; just follow the directions.

►  Take a look at some of our other interesting posts, such as A Dozen Sample Math Formulas for Microsoft Excel

McAfee's SiteAdvisor is Not Working in Firefox

McAfee SiteAdvisor stopped working on my PC for the FIrefox browser. Not only was I not receiving any colored buttons along side the websites listed on my search results screen, the McAfee button in the lower right corner of my Firefox browser window was grayed out.

So I checked the status of the SiteAdvisor add-on in Firefox by clicking on the top menu Tools | Add-ons. Under the Extensions tab, I saw that McAfee SiteAdvisor had "Disable" highlighted, and the other buttons grayed-out. Firefox was telling me that SiteAdvisor was enabled.

So, I disabled it, closed the browser, cleared browser cache, opened a new Firefox browser window, enabled SiteAdvisor ... and I still had the same problem. Help!

Then I noticed a little downward facing arrow by the McAfee button in the lower right corning of my Firefox window. I clicked it and saw an option to "Enable SiteAdvisor." All the other options were grayed out. That's odd, I thought, but why not?

I clicked "Enable SiteAdvisor" and presto! The gray icon turned green! And when I did a search, SiteAdvisor displayed its little green, yellow, red, and gray buttons along side of the websites once again. This made no sense of course ... but computers do have their mysterious ways.

Note: my friend was having the same problem and resolved it in the same manner, but only after rebooting her computer first. So if the above does not resolve your SiteAdvisor coma problem, try rebooting first.

If you do not use McAfee's SiteAdvisor or some other product that screens websites and notifies you of dangerous ones, please consider doing so. You will not believe how many websites are identified as dangerous (red or yellow) - especially if you are looking for free code, music, software, etc.
Cheers!

►  Since we're thinking about the importance of using the Internet safely today, please read Smart Rules for Using the Internet!
20 Rules to Staying Safe, a tutorial on our main website, to make sure you are doing what you can to keep safe on the Internet.

Don't miss our latest post NEW Credit Card Rules You Should Know About! and How to Display formulas in an Excel Spreadsheet.

Scanning for Viruses and Malware - Hints and Tips

Every computer needs to have both virus-scanning software and malware-scanning software installed and regularly updated. There are several excellent free products that you can download and use. We do!

Always download from a reputable site, such as www.download.com. They make sure the software is clean - as one of the popular ways that the bad guys spread viruses and malware (spyware, adware, keystroke-loggers, etc.) is from free downloads of software, music, and other files.

All anti-virus software, even the free ones, update themselves automatically. However, some of the free anti-malware products have to be updated manually. But since you need to scan once a week, it is no problem to remember to update the definitions before performing your scan if you want to save the money.

You also need to run a virus scan on a regular basis - weekly is best. Besides being used as a scanning tool, your anti-virus software also monitors for viruses real-time and alerts you when a virus is encountered.

Before performing your weekly virus scan, get into the habit of cleaning up temporary files first. See our blog Cleaning Up Disk Space.

What should you do when your anti-virus software alerts you to a virus during a scan? First, go to the Internet and search for the virus by name. Read all you can about it; there may be specific instructions on how you should go about removing it.

If you do not find any specific instructions, then, as a rule, give your anti-virus program a chance to repair the infected file if given that option. If that does not work, or is not an option, then quarantine the file. As a last resort, let the anti-virus software delete the file.

To greatly reduce your chances of getting a virus or other PC-crippling badware, follow the advice in our popular tutorial Smart Rules for Using the Internet.

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Urgent! How to Avoid Phishing Scams on the Internet

Each year, Americans lose over 8 billion dollars to Internet criminals. Can you imagine? A lot of that money is lost because of phishing emails. Please read this blog post. Don't be the next victim!

A phishing email is a fake email sent to millions of email addresses by a cyber-criminal. The fake email, supposedly from your financial institution, urges you, entices you, to go to their website via the link provided. The email looks authentic. When you click on the link, it takes you to the bank's website - or so you think, because the website looks authentic. (Do you see a theme here?) And, of course, the first thing you must do is enter your account number and password.

And after you do, your bank account is cleaned out, your credit card is used by thieves, and, perhaps, your entire identity is stolen because the email was a fake, and you just gave criminals your account number and the password to your account.

Banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions seldom send out unsolicited emails that contain links to their websites. But a few do. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission recommends that you never click on links in unsolicited emails regarding financial accounts. We suggest you delete the email without even opening it.

Let's talk about your email address for a moment. Part of the problem is that you are giving it out too freely. Do not give out your email address just because somebody asks for it. Every company in the world wants your email address so they can send you marketing emails. Just say NO. If your pest control company asked for your social security number, would you give it to them? Of course not. Treat your email address like your social security number: only give it out if you absolutely must. Otherwise, just say "No thanks."

What about all of the companies that urge you to sign up for online access? First, don't sign up unless being able to view your account online is a benefit to you, and you think at some time you will want to do it. Secondly, if you do sign up, do not leave the company's website until you have opted out of receiving any marketing emails. The option should be somewhere in your account profile. If you can't find it, the Privacy Policy will tell you how to opt out. If you do this every time, you will get virtually no marketing emails.

And what if you do get an email from a financial institution? Don't open it. If you are worried, call your bank. Or log onto your account by accessing the bank's website via your bookmark. But if you do open the email, do not click on any link. It could very easily be a phishing email and you won't know until it is too late.

To learn more about Internet security, please see our tutorial Smart Rules for Using the Internet!
20 Rules to Staying Safe. We have other security-related tutorials also on our website at KeynoteSupport.com. Cheers!

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