By default your browser history is kept for way too long, which takes up system resources and slows down the browser.  Limiting history size is an excellent way to quickly speed up your browser.

Firefox users:

1. Go to Tools - Options
2. Click on Privacy
3. Then select any number under Keep my history for at least … days. I have it on 7.
4. 
5. Click OK

By the way, if you don’t want to keep any private data at all, simply check Always clear my private data when I close Firefox. To specify what you want cleared, click on the Settings button and check relevant checkboxes.

Internet Explorer 8 users:

1. Go to Tools - Internet Options
2. Under Browsing History click on the Settings button
3. Select a number to keep you browsing history
4. 
5. Before you click OK I would recommend forbidding the browser to check for newer version of stored pages (select Never) and allowing 50MB of disk space to store Temporary Internet Files (the default number is ridiculous).

Enjoy a faster browser!

If you’ve ever used Firefox, you probably would never go back to IE, because Firefox is so much more comfortable to use, intuitive, and fast. And there are all those add-ons that, in my opinion, make it simply the best.

However, having too many add-ons can make the browser slow down and annoy you. To make it fast again, simply run Internet Optimizer, which is part of Auslogics BoostSpeed. With Internet Optimizer you can optimize your connection and browser settings. After running this tool Firefox will be as fast as ever.

But, to tell you the truth, with fast Internet connections available these days speed is not that much of an issue (unless something is really wrong with your settings). I mean, so pages will take 2 milliseconds less to render and your download speed will improve a bit – that’s not really a big deal anymore!

What is important, though, is your browsing experience – usually you don’t sit there for ages waiting for a page to load, but rather waste a lot of time clicking links one by one, looking for the entry you need in your right-click menu, and so on.

Luckily, Firefox has add-ons and here is a list of the ones that save me a lot of time and speed up my browsing experience.

Menu Editor

Menu Editor is a wonderful add-on that lets you manage and organize your Firefox right-click menu. You can rearrange items and group them together to make the context menu less cluttered and confusing. This extension is especially useful if you have a lot of add-ons installed.

AutoPager

AutoPager is a great extension which can save you a lot of time by loading the next page of a site automatically. It does it in-line, so all you have to do to see the next page is scroll down. This add-on is a real time saver when I’m looking for something on Google, because I don’t have to keep clicking the page numbers anymore.

Hyperwords

For me this is the handiest extension ever. Basically, Hyperwords makes all the words on the page interactive. You can select any text on any page, right-click it, and lots of options will appear in the context menu. You can do a search, you can look up references, translate the word, and much more.

LittleFox

If you want to get the most out of your screen and especially if you have a lot of add-ons installed and they take up a lot of screen space, LittleFox will help. This extension will make items smaller and ensure optimal screen usage.

Snap Links

Snap Links will allow you to open multiple links in new tabs by drawing a box around them. No more  clicking one link at a time! No need to say that this is extremely handy for opening search engine results. Links can also be opened in new windows, new tabs on a new window, copied to clipboard, bookmarked or downloaded.