Firefox delay

[rijam]

Will there ever be a time when the delay will be gone.I have tried Geswall and Defensewall and although i like Sandboxie the most ,its the only one with the delay on starting Firefox.I know its only a few seconds but just to uninstall and run without is great and its great to get unrestricted.

[tzuk]

There shouldn't be a delay. Maybe your Firefox profile folder is filled with large files, that might force Sandboxie to make duplicates of large files, which is something that can be slow. So for starters, try deleting your Firefox cache. (Alt+Shift+Del in a Firefox running outside the sandbox.)

[rijam]

Its only when i first start Firefox.If i leave firefox open and start it again its fast

[H3*]

Its only when i first start Firefox.If i leave firefox open and start it again its fast

rijam thats the way windows works, it's the same whatever application you run.

[rijam]

If i disable Sandboxie,firefox starts alot faster on first start.On earlier versions the delay was more,so Sandboxie has improved but its still there,and i wondered if it will ever be gone.Sandboxie is the best but i wish for no extra delay one day

[Guest10]

... but i wish for no extra delay one day

Maybe we should wish for newer, faster computers while we're at it.
My most-used Firefox profile is loaded down with 32 extensions, 18 plug-ins, and a 3rd party theme.
So when not sandboxed it takes about 9 seconds to the point where it displays my home page.

When sandboxed, it's about 16 seconds. My computer is now 8 years old, so I'm not complaining.
As you said, sandboxed Firefox starts faster than it used to.

And these time are on the second Firefox run after booting up.
The first run after a boot up is always much slower than subsequent runs.
Maybe someone will be able to say why that is. Is something being cached, after the first run?

[rijam]

Fixed for now,i changed to Chrome. It loads instantly.

[Mike]

Just to add another data point here, I've always seen a small but perceptible delay of about 1 second - the OS feels less "snappy." But I assume this is normal, and could be approximated to "no" delay.

Firefox start time:

• ~1.4s unsandboxed
  ~2.3s sandboxed (64% slower)
  ~2.2s sandboxed, when SandboxieRpcSs.exe and SandboxieDcomLaunch.exe are already running (57% slower)
  
  Details: The time for Firefox to start and load about:blank was measured using a manual timer macro and then averaged over 10 runs. After starting Firefox, the sandbox contained 10 Firefox-related files totaling 113 KB, and 6 RegHive* files totaling 1.32 MB; whether or not Firefox had previously started in the sandbox made no consistently measureable difference.

When tested on a slower machine, the results were similar: ~2.0s unsandboxed, ~3.2s sandboxed (60% slower).

Rijam, if you ever want to go back to Firefox, you might want to check if the delay still occurs with a new profile, and then troubleshoot from there.

[Mike]

The first run after a boot up is always much slower than subsequent runs.

Shot in the dark here, but perhaps some of your extensions (32!) are trying to update or synch?

[Guest10]

Shot in the dark here, but perhaps some of your extensions (32!) are trying to update or synch?

Thanks for the suggestion, but I keep update checks turned off for Firefox, add-ons and search engines.
The number of add-ons definitely affects the start. A profile with few extensions will start within 4-5 seconds.

[Mike]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I keep update checks turned off for Firefox, add-ons and search engines.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of extensions that need to update subscriptions (like Adblock) or that want to synch your bookmarks or libraries (like Zotero). One might think that extensions would use delayed loading to avoid impacting startup time, but this isn't necessarily true. For example, Zotero used to delay startup by 15+ seconds when trying to update its translators.

Anyway, I think what you're really looking at might be the difference between cold and warm starts (examples here and here). So you were probably right that the difference has to do with caching, since the OS hits the disk a lot more on the first load after boot.

Also, rijam, even a few popular extensions can double your startup time: http://blog.mozilla.com/tglek/2010/03/1 ... s-startup/

[ssj100]

Firefox start time:

• ~1.4s unsandboxed
  ~2.3s sandboxed (64% slower)
  ~2.2s sandboxed, when SandboxieRpcSs.exe and SandboxieDcomLaunch.exe are already running (57% slower)
  
  Details: The time for Firefox to start and load about:blank was measured using a manual timer macro and then averaged over 10 runs. After starting Firefox, the sandbox contained 10 Firefox-related files totaling 113 KB, and 6 RegHive* files totaling 1.32 MB; whether or not Firefox had previously started in the sandbox made no consistently measureable difference.

When tested on a slower machine, the results were similar: ~2.0s unsandboxed, ~3.2s sandboxed (60% slower).

This sums up what I personally experience - a delay of about 1-2 seconds on opening a sandboxed Firefox or IE. It's odd that the original poster does not notice a delay with DefenseWall or GeSWall - I certainly did, and it's slightly longer than the delay Sandboxie causes the last time I tested them.

Also, I have 4 extensions in my Firefox - NoScript, Video DownloadHelper, an extension provided by my ISP to monitor internet usage, and the "Free Download Manager" add-on. I also have mostly default plug-ins. Following Windows prefetching (which is done automatically by Windows), my sandboxed Firefox cold starts are the same as my warm starts - about 1.5 seconds total, give or take 0.5 seconds (by personal perception). Unsandboxed, it's about 0.5 seconds (by personal perception), give or take 0.5 seconds.