Firefox search box too slow (Vista)?

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

Tweet

In Windows Vista, if Firefox 3 is too slow, freezes or hangs when you're trying to search by typing a search term in its search bar or search box (outlined in red on the right in the pic below), or in its address bar (on the left) when using a custom Firefox keyword search, you could try the following possible fix for the problem. For me it started when I was searching, rather than typing the web address directly in the browser address bar.

I found the solution outlined in this helpful post so, for non-techies, here's a step by step pictorial guide on how to do it:

1. In the Firefox address bar, type:
   about:config
   (as shown on the left in the pic above).
   
2. If you get the following warning, click "I'll be careful, I promise!"
   
   
   
3. In the resulting Filter box, type:
   v6
   - and you should get this coming up:
   
   
4. If under the "Value" column for network.dns.disableIPv6 it already says "true", then sorry, your problem must be caused by something else and you'll have to try some other method of troubleshooting.
   
5. But if the value of network.dns.disableIPv6 is currently "false", just change it to "true" by doubleclicking on the "network.dns.disableIPv6" line, and you'll get this:
   
   
   

You could then close and restart Firefox first just in case, though I found I didn’t had to.

That solved it for me - searching via the Firefox address bar or search box had suddenly inexplicably started becoming agonisingly slow, hourglassing, not responding or not working at all, but after doing that fix the searching instantly started working properly again. Hope the same trick will work for you if your Firefox search grinds to a halt too!

Tags: speed, slow, productivity, troubleshooting, problems, Firefox, browser, tricks, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience