Part of this slowness is caused by the fact that this type of software saves and deletes data continuously therefore, after a certain period of use, they can swell with so much data that is no longer needed.
If the program needs to search for information in an ever larger database, it will take longer to load.
In the case of Firefox and Thunderbird the information is saved in a SQLite database that grows over time and becomes bigger and bigger.
The problem with SQLite databases is that when data is deleted using various cleaners or by clearing the browser cache from Firefox settings, they are not really removed from the database file, but only marked as free for future use. .
The good thing is that the database file cannot grow beyond a certain size because the new data is saved in the free space.
However, if the database is fragmented on the disk it could slow down the loading of the program.
In an article with some general tips to follow if Firefox goes slow, I had mentioned a program called Speedyfox, whose goal is to optimize the SQLite database, compacting it .
Now SpeedyFox 2 has been released which works not only for Firefox but also for Google Chrome, Skype and Thunderbird .
SpeedyFox 2.0 is a standalone program for Windows and Mac that can be used to automatically perform some maintenance on these programs.
After downloading it for free, all you have to do is launch the application, select the programs to be optimized (if they are present on the computer) and then start the optimization.
Firefox, Chrome and Skype profiles are automatically detected if they are in the default positions, otherwise they can be added from the general Speedyfox menu.
Before you start optimizing the databases of the selected profiles, you must close these programs.
After a few seconds, the optimization process ends and the databases or profile files of Firefox, Chrome, Skype and Thunderbird are compressed and emptied of obsolete information .
Speedyfox 2.0 can be used occasionally when you perceive some slowness of the browser.
On computers that use SSDs, this type of optimization is not needed.
If you wish, you can also schedule Speedyfox for a periodic run, maybe every month.
Note that the option to shrink Chrome and Firefox profiles is also available in Ccleaner.
I remember that in other articles on Firefox, I wrote:
- How to speed up the loading of Firefox in startup
- Optimize Firefox for faster internet browsing on websites
- 7 Firefox extensions to decrease RAM memory consumption.
For Chrome instead, how to optimize Google Chrome to consume less memory
