sybok
Was just wondering if there is any optimization without sacrificing security (and possibly without losing too much user-friendliness) that could give a snappier internet browsing experience.
Summarising and expanding upon the previous posts:
0) Consider “minor” HW upgrade – e.g. does your MoBo (and BIOS?) support a newer swifter CPU that the power-source would be able to handle?
1) Go lightweight with your apps: I combine lightweight text-based browser for some web-pages that are easy to navigate/read; I used to use ‘cmus’ when working on a very low-end PC in the past
2) Browsing: Use (ad) blocking, disable ‘autoplay’ and do additional performance-friendly settings; @Xunzi_23 once recommended this link https://brainfucksec.github.io/firefox-hardening-guide-2025 (I guess it also disables some of the under the hood activity of FF which could make it a tiny little bit snappier); if FF “misbehaves” performance-wise, explore about:memory and|or about:processes
4) Be Consider using ‘nice’ when starting a resource hungry application (‘nice -n N <power hungry app>’, see ‘man nice’)?
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999) Going hard-code (I’ve never done that myself), you could consider compiling some of the programs yourself – tailored to your HW (kernel and FF?)