# Firefox getting sluggish on downloads **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2006, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-getting-sluggish-on-downloads/383290 "2006-12-08T00:58:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Khan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3ab097/32.png) [@Khan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-getting-sluggish-on-downloads/383290/1 "2006-12-08T00:58:36Z")
Over the last six months I’ve noticed that Firefox has picked up a tendency to get dangerously close to crashing whenever I download even files as small as 10kb. I’ll click the save button, and my browser will stall until that stupid “file has finished downloading” thing comes up. If I try to do anything in Firefox during that period it’ll give me a “not responding” message that I can cancel and still recover from. A related quirk happens whenever I download pictures. If I have multiple windows open and I make the mistake of trying to x-out prematurely, the taskbar button for the site I was downloading from will disappear, although I can use the task manager to bring it back. I’m running version 1.5.0.8 right now (although in a moment I’m going to upgrade to 2.0). I’ve made it so that the download progress window doesn’t show up any more, but I can’t get rid of that “download finished” flag. I tried clearing my download and browsing history, but that didn’t help either. Any ideas as to what’s going on? I ran Spybot, Adaware, AVG, and Symantec and they didn’t turn up anything worse than the usual tracking cookies. Is there something with this particular version that’s causing this? ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-getting-sluggish-on-downloads/383290/2 "2006-12-08T07:13:25Z")
I had the same problem once. I had to clean up and defrag my whole machine to get things working fast again. Just because Irefox was ship shape, if the rest of the computer is chugging along slow, Irefox will not be able to overcome all the other slow places. So, do the whole thing and I also go into preferences and up the cache size a bunch which seems to lesson the times I need to do an overall scan and defrag. YMMV ---
**Author:** ![metonymic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@metonymic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/metonymic)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-getting-sluggish-on-downloads/383290/3 "2006-12-08T16:33:28Z")
For me, Firefox would often get sluggish and chuggy when I didn’t set it to automatically clean up finished downloads as soon as they complete (you can change that setting via a checkbox in Options). The list of downloaded files would then accumulate in the downloads window until I manually clicked its ‘clean up’ button. For some reason, even though the list was not very long, this caused considerable slowdown. That might not be the cause of all your problems, but it would be good to rule it out as a contributing factor! ---
**Author:** ![Khan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3ab097/32.png) [@Khan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-getting-sluggish-on-downloads/383290/4 "2006-12-08T18:11:27Z")
I think that might have been what happened, **metonymic**. I was poking around in my settings some more to see what I could clear out. It stalled when I tried to clear my download list and wouldn’t open again after I closed it or restarted my computer. After struggling with it for a while I just uninstalled everything and set up 2.0. I’ve set it up to clear my download list every time I close the browser. I’ve got virtually instantaneous downloads now, so problem solved. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-getting-sluggish-on-downloads/383290/5 "2006-12-08T21:29:45Z")
This is quite interesting… I’ve got a similar problem; saving an item freezes Firefox for 5-10 seconds before the download window appears and the app is responsive again. Intensely irritating it is, too! I’ll try that when I get home. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-getting-sluggish-on-downloads/383290/6 "2006-12-09T03:39:28Z")
Well hey! That worked great. Downloads are instantaneous to start, rather than glacial. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![metonymic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@metonymic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/metonymic)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-getting-sluggish-on-downloads/383290/7 "2006-12-09T18:55:39Z")
Great to hear! I’m glad it worked, for both you and **Nanoda**. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-getting-sluggish-on-downloads/383290/8 "2006-12-09T20:39:39Z")
And for me, not that I’d asked. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.