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I'd like to keep Firefox running in the background for quick opening of new windows (on Lubuntu with i3). Is this possible by changing settings, installing extensions, etc.?

Brian Duddy
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vpzomtrrfrt
  • 581

2 Answers2

1

So far, the most luck I've had was sending one window to the Tray using a tool. RBTray's 2017 GitHub fork worked to actually send it to tray but I don't yet have a way to automate this on Windows. On the Ubuntu StackExchange there's a similar question that includes a script for sending it to tray.

Tyler Szabo
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0

This answer will try to address the symptom (slow opening of Firefox), rather than the question (Keep Firefox running in the background).

TL;DR

Disable all of your extensions and enable them one-by-one with restarting Firefox to see which extensions have the most impact on startup performance and then decide whether you really need that extension or not if it causes a slowdown.

Full Answer

After giving up on trying to find solutions that would keep Firefox hidden in the background, I tried tools like preload, and messing around with about:config to improve the loading time, but nothing had a noticeable impact for me. Someone suggested using a new profile by starting Firefox with the following command:

firefox -P

I created a new profile and experimented with closing and opening firefox which was now almost instant. However all my extensions were gone. I found that if I went back to my original profile (by executing the command again), and disabling all my extensions, I achieved the same effect. I enabled them one by one and came to the following solution for myself:

I still have the following enabled which seem to have little to no impact on startup:

  • ctrl-tab
  • DownThemAll
  • Firebug
  • HTTPS-Everywhere
  • Ubuntu Modifications

I also keep Adblock Plus enabled, but unfortunately this is another addon that causes a noticeable slow-down on the startup time. It's worth the trade-off though.

Programster
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