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Firefox may be my browser of choice but there are times when it is REALLY slow, so slow in fact that I am sorely tempted to defect to Opera or even gasp Safari!

It’s sometimes even worse when you’re opening up Firefox. You click on that little Fox icon and it sits there thinking “hmmm….he wants me to start up…will I or won’t I? Let’s think about it for a few minutes”. Meanwhile you’re sitting there gnashing your teeth and flirting with the idea of walking on the wild side with Flock.

But you don’t have to wail and despair any more! During a little stroll through SourceForge, I found an interesting program called Firefox Preloader which was short on technical details but long on prospects. It claims to be able to “improve Firefox’s start-up time”.

Now at this point, you’re probably very cynical about anything that claims to be able to speed up Firefox. After all, a quick Google search on “optimizing Firefox” or “speed up Firefox” brings back countless hits (some of them totally useless) and often, messing around with the “about:config” section of Firefox can harm the browser more than it can help it. So I didn’t immediately fall head over heels in love with Firefox Preloader. I too had my healthy dose of scepticism. However, overwhelming curiosity won the day and I decided to see if it really did work.

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