I've been using xubuntu (xfce) 18.04 on a Dell Optiplex 755 for about a week now. Firefox is the browser that xubuntu "ships" with. I have cable ethernet (wired, not wifi).

The problem is that my firefox loads web pages often painfully slowly. Text pages, like google searches, seem to load fairly quick, but not content-rich or function-rich pages. The overall page loading is much slower than that of the previous Windows 7 system that was on the same machine, and other family machines on the same modem/router are not experiencing this issue.

However, youtube videos, after the page has loaded, seem to play fine without halting or hiccuping.

I tried emptying firefox cache, but it doesn't help. Besides, I noticed the problem from day one.

When I boot from the xubuntu usb installation stick, the pages load much more quickly, so the problem only affects the hard-drive installed xubuntu.

I'm usually signed-in with google while on firefox, but the problem happens also when I'm not signed in with google.

I notice that a default setting in Firefox is to have automatic updates, but I doubt that updates are being done so often as to slow things down almost always.

Advice on speeding up the firefox page loading?

How much RAM do you have in the box? How much hard disk space do you have remaining?

Which version of Firefox?

Have you tried using the uBlock Origin and NoScript addons?

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I've just searched (duckduckgo — this is a Google-free zone!) for "firefox speedup page loading" and there's lots of advice out there, some of which must surely work. Personally, I keep Firefox in reserve and use Midori most of the time, so I haven't bothered to try them.

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clear the firefox cache or a new profile.
How many addons installed?

Start ff w\no addons?
Troubleshoot Firefox issues using Safe Mode

Good Luck.

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Thanks for replies
Machine has 4gb ram, approx 70gb left on hdd, firefox on automatic updates currently ver 62.0
Am trying suggestions from all three of you.
So far, have had at least some temporary success with EITHER disabling all firefox add-ons OR adding Ublock Origin and Noscript. Should have thought to check earlier, but I noticed that firefox by default has a proprietary "user search study" extension which might be at least partly the culprit.
I will continue to experiment with my add-ons and report if I find anything useful.

Confirmed, removing the "user search study" extension in Firefox (which was included with my xubuntu installation) seems to have resulted in consistently MUCH MUCH faster browsing during the past 24 hours.

Interestingly, the adblocker and/or noscript that hydrurga suggested seemed to have also sped up page loading, even when I still had the "user search study" installed. Perhaps one of the first two prevents the "search study" from executing somehow, or perhaps the script blocking allowed more complex pages to load layer by layer, rather than get delayed for a long time on a blank tab (the original problem)?

Thanks much, problem solved.

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Glad you got it sorted out. It could well have been that the User Search Study extension inserted JavaScript into pages which was then stripped out by NoScript - I have no idea to be honest, but I'm sure that a web search may illuminate further if you're interested in learning more (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/com...extension_too/).

Note that there is a Firefox setting Privacy & Security->Firefox Data Collection and Use->Allow Firefox to install and run studies. If it is switched on, then you'd be better to switch it off if you don't want such studies.

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