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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
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  • amen to that. Firefox opens new windows MUCH faster when an instance is already running, even on powerful hardware. It would be great if one background thread could keep it open whilst not showing up in our task bars etc. – Programster Apr 16 '16 at 15:08

2 Answers2

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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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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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